USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Professional and industrial history of Suffolk County, Massachusetts, Volume II > Part 2
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The market place was the centre of the town life. Everybody resorted to it for business and for gossip, and there the rude punishments of the time were inflicted upon recalcitrant offenders. The whipping-post and the stocks occupied prominent positions in the open space, and danger-
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ons and heretical books had been burned there in the presence of awe- stricken spectators. In 1611 a cage was set up there for the confinement and exposure of those who had violated the laws relating to the observ- ance of the Sabbath. In 165: it was determined to build a town house and exchange on a part of the market place. Robert Keayne had by his will left money for the purpose, but the amount was not sufficient, and a subscription paper was opened, which has been preserved to the present day. The amount raised was £135.4, but most of the sub- scriptions were payable in merchandise. Hezekiah Usher subscribed f20, payable in English goods, William Payne, flo in goods and pro- visions, Richard Bellingham, flo in country pay. Edward Tyng, £10 in corn, John Evered, £10 in goods and corn, Peter Oliver, £10 in goods and provisions, Theodore Atkinson, Es in hats, John Hull, Es in English goods, Samuel Hutchinson, £5 in wethers. Thomas Little showed his publie spirit by putting his name down for three days' work. Only two cash subscriptions appear on the list: William Paddy, [12, and Henry Shrimpton, 610. The former had just moved from Plymouth, where he had been a deacon of the church, and died before the completion of the building. Under a contract with a committee of the town, dated August 1, 1662, Thomas Joy and Bartholomew Ber- nard agreed to erect " a very substantial and comely building " of wood, sixty-six feet long by thirty-six feet wide, " set upon twenty-one pillars of full ten foot high between pedestal and capital, and well braced all four ways, placed upon foundation of stones in the bottom. The whole building to jetty over three foot without the pillars every way: the height of the said house to be ten foot betwixt joints above the pillars, and a half story above that with three gable ends over it upon each side." John Josselyn mentions the "town-house, built upon pillars, where the merchants may confer. In the chambers above they keep their monthly courts." The exchange was open to the weather, but it may have been more or less enclosed during the winter season. Judge Sewall, in his diary, describes the funeral of a sea captain, Thomas Smith, which took place there, November 10, 1688, and very appropriately, as it would seem, in the presence of the merchants and of his seafaring friends: " Where the corpse was set was the room where first my father [in law] Hull had me to see the manner of the merchants, I suppose now about twelve years ago. Bearers, Captain Prout, Fayerweather, William Clarke, Foye, Tanner, Legg." The first building was burned in 1111; the second, erected in 1:12, was badly
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damaged by fire in 1:44, but the outside walls survive in the building which we know as the Old State House, as it now stands.
During the Civil War in England a parliamentary commission had been intrusted with the superintendence of colonial affairs. In the first year of the Restoration, this commission was succeeded by a Council of Foreign Plantations, which was invested with similar powers. We have here the origin of the English Board of Trade, which, for more than two hundred years, has been one of the most influential depart- ments of the imperial government.
In 1660 the Navigation Act of the Commonwealthi was made the basis of stricter and more exclusive legislation. This act had been con- ceived in a spirit of hostility to the Dutch, particularly because of their refusal to enter into a close alliance with England which might have led to their political union with that country. It provided that all im- ports into England from Asia, Africa and America, should be brought in English ships, and from Europe, only in vessels of the countries re- spectively of which the goods imported were the growth or manu- facture. No salt fish could be imported, except such as had been caught and cured by the people of England; nor exported, except in English bottoms. These provisions would have worked most in- juriously against the commercial interests of New England, if they had been adhered to rigidly, but, as we have said, Cromwell had allowed the law to be a dead letter, so far as they were concerned. But the new parliament forbade the importation of merchandise into any English colony, except in English vessels, with English crews, and. specifying various colonial staples, it prohibited their exportation from the place of production. The penalty in both cases was forfeiture of the vessel and cargo. But, as Palfrey shows, there were articles of New England production which the demand in England, whether for consumption or for commerce, could not exhaust; while it concerned the English merchants that the colonists should somehow obtain money to pay for English manufactures. Accordingly, New England vessels were permitted to carry freights of lumber, fish, etc., to "Spain and other ports," and to bring to England only the proceeds of the sales. By further legislation in 1663, the import trade of the colonists was con- fined to a direct commerce with the mother country, and they were for- bidden to bring from any other country, or in any but English ships, the products not only of England, but of any European soil. There were certain exceptions, however; salt might be imported direct for the
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fisheries, wines from Madeira and the Azores, and provisions from Scot- land and Ireland.
The prevalent thought in the mother country was that the colonists should live and labor with supreme and constant reference to its com- mercial interests rather than to their own. New England was regarded as a most important source of supply for shipbuilding materials, and to some extent for ships, and, through its fisheries, as a valttable nursery for seamen. But the people of New England-we mean, of course, those living on the coast and at the seaports, of whom the business men of Boston were the representatives and factors-had altogether differ- ent ideas. They were already under the influence of the commercial in- stinet, which was to develop so wonderfully in the eighteenth, and during the first half of the nineteenth centuries, and they became, in- evitably, a shipowning and commercial community. They not only chafed against, but, in effect, they nullified, the oppressive legislation which was intended to restrain and restrict their enterprise ; and they refused to content themselves with the function of supplying the mer- chants of England with the implements of ocean commerce, and to forego, on their own part, all right or opportunity of sharing in the profits of trading voyages. They understood perfectly, that to own and employ tonnage is vastly more remunerative than merely to con- struct it, and they persisted in using for their own benefit a considerable portion of the shipping built here. It was this that led Sir Josiah Child, a great London merchant, to write: "New England is the most prejudicial plantation to this kingdom." And why? Because, he said, "of all the American plantations, his Majesty has none so apt for building of shipping as New England, nor any comparably so qualified for the breeding of seamen, not only by reason of the natural industry of that people, but principally by reason of their cod and mackerel fish- eries; and in my poor opinion, there is nothing more prejudicial, and in prospect more dangerous, to any mother kingdom, than the increase of shipping in her colonies, plantations or provinces." Bacon, in one of his Essays, had taken a more just and liberal view, but he wrote these some time before the settlement of Boston, Salem or Plymouth. His judgment was: " Let there be freedom from custom, till the planta- tion be of strength ; and not only freedom from custom, but freedom to carry their commodities where they may make the best of them, except there be some special cause of caution."
Speaking of the dealings of England with her North American colonies, Adam Smith says: " The first regulations which she made
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with regard to them had always in view to secure to herself the mo- nopoly of their commerce; to confine their market, and to enlarge her own at their expense; and consequently rather to damp and discourage than to quicken and forward the course of their prosperity." This policy he calls " one of the mean and malignant expedients of the 'mer- cantile system.'"
John Hull records in his diary that in 1664 one hundred sail of ships came into Boston Harbor, "our own and strangers, and all loaded home." In the same year commissioners arrived from England, with large powers, who were instructed to inform themselves "of the trite and whole state " of the several colonies, and to bring the colonists into more direct and dependent relations to the crown. Among other in- formation they were to send home a report of the amount and methods of taxation, and of the amount of the tonnage; and they were to take care that such orders were established " that the Act of Navigation should be punctually observed." We need not relate at this time the long story of the negotiations between the royal commissioners and the authorities here, or show how the former were baffled and defeated at every stage. After two years of ineffectual endeavor, the commis- sioners took leave of the General Court of Massachusetts in a com- munication in which they said: "Since you will needs misconstrue all these letters and endeavors, and that you will make use of that au- thority which he hath given you to oppose that sovereignty which he hath over you, we shall not lose more of our labors upon you, but refer it to his Majesty's wisdom, who is of power enough to make himself to be obeyed in all his dominions." The Court saw an opportunity, however, of which it availed itself, to pacify the king, whom it was in the habit of treating as a petted child. Palfrey well says of Charles, that " Massachusetts desired no favor of him but neglect, and had re- ceived no favor from him to attach her by ties of gratitude." Hull records the arrival, August 2, 1666, "of Captain Peirce with several ships for masts for the king." There was a mast fleet, whose regular movement back and forth across the Atlantic is mentioned by Judge Sewall and others during a period of fifty years and more. At this juncture, as Palfrey points out, the Court was disposed to lighten in any proper way the difficult task it had assumed, and it took measures for sending to the king a present of masts for the use of the royal navy. "It cost the colony nearly two thousand pounds, and was very grate- fully received in England, being so seasonable that it was afterwards
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thought to have materially contributed to the favorable issue of the existing war with France." Pepys writes, December 3, 1666: " There is also the very good news of four New England ships come home safe to Falmouth with masts for the king: which is a blessing mighty un- expected, and without which, if for nothing else, we must have failed the next year."
In 1642 arrangements were made for a mail to leave New York for Boston on the first Monday of every month.
On the Sth of May, 1644, an Order in Council cancelled the order adopted thirteen years before, by which vessels from New England were permitted to carry cargoes to continental ports and bring the pro- ceeds of their sale to England. The Rev. John Collins wrote to Governor Leverett at this time: "I hear that the king is offended that some of your ships take in their lading from Virginia, and go to France and defrand his customs, as also from other plantations." During the next few years the business men of Boston suffered not only from the restrictions which the home government sought to place upon their foreign commerce, but from two destructive fires, and from the severe struggle known in our history as Philip's War. For this war Massa- chusetts showed an outlay of 646, 292, and the assessment on property in one year was one shilling and four pence in the pound, or nearly seven per cent. on the valuation.
Early in the summer of 1646, Edward Randolph for the first time appeared upon the scene, as an agent of the crown to inquire into and report upon the various complaints which had been brought against the colonists. We have to do only with those which related to their commerce. After having been officially received at the Council Cham- ber, Randolph called on the governor at his house and formally com- plained of the infractions of the Act of Navigation, which, during the few days which had passed since his arrival, had come under his notice. lle had seen " several ships that were arrived at Boston, some since his being there, from Spain, France, Straits, Canaries, and other parts of Europe." He obtained little satisfaction from the authorities, and after a stay of two months he returned to England and made a report of what he had seen and heard. From this report we gather informa- tion, approximately correct, no doubt, relating to the shipping and shipbuilding enterprise of the people at the time of which he wrote. He gave his attention almost entirely to the colony " commonly called the corporation of Boston," which at the present time, he said, " gives
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laws to a great part of this country." According to his statement, the people of Massachusetts (represented largely by the people of Boston) imported the products of other colonies, both for home consumption and for shipment "to other parts." They had commerce with " most parts of Europe, as England, Scotland, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, France, Holland, Canaries and the Hanse Towns, carrying to each place such commodities as were vendible, either of their own growth and manu- facture or those of the other plantations, and making their returns in such goods as were necessary and vendible either in New England or in any other of his Majesty's dominions in America; as brandy, Canary, Spanish and French wines, bullion, salt, fruits, oils, silks, laces, linen of all sorts, cloths, serges, bays, kerseys, stockings, and many other commodities." Some vessels had been sent as far as "to Guinea, Madagascar, and those coasts, and some to Scanderoon, laden with masts and yards for ships." Boston was "the mart town of the West Indies." There was " no notice taken of the Act of Navigation, plant- ation, or any other laws made in England for the regulation of trade." Of vessels "built in and belonging to that jurisdiction," there were thirty measuring between one hundred and two hundred and fifty tons, besides seven hundred of smaller size. There were also " several ves- sels yearly built there and sold in England and other parts." "Good ships were built for four pounds the ton."
The importance of the royal navy, and of New England as producing timber and naval stores for its use, is brought out in this report: "The commodities of the production, growth and manufacture of New Eng- land are all things necessary for shipping and naval furniture in great abundance, as excellent oak, elm, beech, fir, pine for masts the best in the world, pitch, tar, hemp, and iron not inferior to that of Bilboa, clapboards, pipe-staves, planks, and deal boards, so that his Majesty need not be beholding to other nations for naval stores."
From an account of New England, written at about the same time by William Harris, of Rhode Island, we obtain some further informa- tion: " They build every year, about Boston, Salem, and in that juris- diction, twelve ships between forty and eighty tons. The merchants seem to be rich men, and their houses as handsomely fur- nished as most in London. Their wool they carry to France and bring thence linen. Fish, pipe-staves, wool and tobacco they ex- change in Spain and Portugal for wines and other commodities; beaver, moose and deer skins, sugar and logwood, in England, for cloths and
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manufactures of iron; horses, beef, pork, butter, cheese, flour, pease, biscuit, etc., in Barbadoes, for sugar and indigo; provisions in Jamaica for pieces of eight, Spanish plate, and pigs of silver."
In 1644 the first regular post-office in Boston was established in re- sponse to the following petition of prominent merchants to the General Court : " We whose names are under written hearing many complaints made by merchants and others (and severall of us being sensible) of the loss of letters: whereby merchants especially with their friends and imployers in forraigne parts are greatly damnified: Many times the letters imposted are thrown upon the Exchange so that who will may take them up; no person (without some satisfaction) being willing to trouble their houses therewith: so that Letters of Great moment are frequently lost -
"Our humble request therefore to this Honored Court is: that they will please to depute some meet person, to take in, and convey Letters according to dircetion: and if this Honored Court please, we suppose Lt. Richard Way may be a fitt person for that service." The petition .was signed by Thomas Brattle, Thomas Deane, Hezekiah Usher, John Usher, Charles Lidget, Benjamin Davis, John Fayerweather, John Frost, Richard Crisp, Sampson Sheafe, Edward Shippen, Richard Knight, John Hubbard, Edward Drinker, Henry Dering, John Clarke, John Pynchon, jr. In granting the desire of the petitioners, the deputies made a nomination of their own: "and in Richard Ways rome [they] doe make choice of Mr. John Hayward the scrivener to be the man, the Honored Magistrates consenting." The magistrates con- curred.
The rate of postage to and from England was fixed at a shilling for a single letter, and this rate was maintained until after the middle of the present century. In the same year, at the same (May) session of the Court, the " Handycraftsmen, a very considerable part of the Town of Boston," to the number of one hundred and twenty-nine, presented a memorial praying for protection in their several calling's under the fol- lowing circumstances: They complained that "by the frequent in- truding of strangers from all parts, especially of such as are not desirably qualified," they found themselves " under great disadvantages and prejudicial to the town ; and many times the stranger draws away much of the custom from his neighbor which hath been long settled and in reality is much more the deserving man." The memorialists asked for the regular and effectual execution of the orders relating to
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the admission of inhabitants, and that tradesmen should fulfill a suffi- cient apprenticeship and be proficient before they set up for themselves. The subject was referred to a committee, but whether any subsequent action was taken, we do not know.
At the close of the year 1679 Randolph arrived in Boston for the second time, bringing an appointment as "collector, surveyor, and seareher" for all the colonies in New England, and a letter from the king, enjoining, among other matters, "a striet obedience to the Acts of Trade and Navigation." He proceeded without delay to one part of the business committed to him, and had several vessels seized with their lading ; but to secure the condemnation of this property was altogether another thing, for the courts and the juries, representing public opinion, were not disposed to help him in any way. "His Majesty's authority," he said, "and the Acts of Trade were disowned openly in the country, and 1 was cast in all these cases, and damages [were] given against his Majesty. " He drew up a formal paper in which he made complaint against "the Bostoneers" under eight heads; under the eighth he averred: "They violate all the Acts of Trade and Navigation, by which they have engrossed the greatest part of the West India trade, whereby your Majesty is damnificd in the customs £100,000 yearly, and the kingdom much more."
In his zeal for the cause of the erown as against the colonists, and in order that he might be armed with new powers for the confliet into which he had thrown himself, Randolph went back to England in the spring of 1681, and returned again in December of the same year. He bore a royal commission for his collectorship, and a new appointment as " deputy auditor and surveyor-general;" he brought also a letter from the king, much more positive and decided than any which had preceded it, in which the threat was distinctly made that, unless the colonists submitted themselves in all particulars to the royal authority, proceedings would be entered upon in the courts whereby the charter, with all the powers under it "might be legally evicted and made void." This threat produced a certain degree of compliance with the require- ments of the king; an address to him, loyal in tone, but general in terms, was agreed to by the General Court, in which his longer for- bearanee was entreated; and, what had been many times asked for but hitherto delayed, two agents, Joseph Dudley and John Richards, were dispatched to England, to make explanations and receive direet in- struetions. It was ordered that the Acts of Trade and Navigation
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should " be forthwith published in the market-place in Boston by beat of drum, and that all clauses in said aets relating to this plantation should be strictly taken notice of and observed." The agents were to give assurance to the king, "that the Acts of Trade, so far as they con- cerned the colony, should be strictly observed, and that all due en- couragement and assistance should be given to his Majesty's officers and informers that might prosecute the breaches of said Acts of Trade and Navigation." As to the old grievance-the coinage of money, the agents were directed to ask the king's pardon for the past, and, for the future, his "gracious allowance therein, it being so exceedingly neces- sary for civil commerce."
While thus respectful in terms, and, in appearance, compliant with the royal demands, the General Court took care to reserve, in effect, to the colony all its rights in connection with trade, and placed checks and limitations on the appointce of the crown for the collection of the cus- toms, which were likely to interfere seriously with the exercise by him of the powers with which his office was endowed. The wily official, however, was not deceived; he understood the men with whom he was dealing as thoroughly as they understood him. He had the royal authority and the courtiers at his back ; they appreciated the advantages of their position, on the hither side of the broad intervening ocean, and they had the encouragement and moral support of many sympathizing friends in England. " The distance of place, and hopes of troubles at home, with the many scandalous papers sent hither for the benefit and comfort of the ill-affected, make this party thus daringly presume." This wrote Randolph, in an official letter, in connection with certain "high articles of misdemeanor exhibited against a faction in the Gen- eral Court;" in these "articles," he charges the authorities with re- fusing to " declare and admit of his Majesty's letters-patent, " creating the office of collector of customs in New England; of obstructing him by the revival of a law which constituted a colonial naval officer; of usurping, in the General Court, judicial powers confined by the charter to the governor and assistants; of neglecting to repeal their laws "contrary to the laws of England; " and of disregarding the king's let- ters-patent, “creating an office of surveyor and auditor-general of his Majesty's revenues arising in America."
James Russell was appointed naval officer, with the duty of watching the proceedings of the collector. The office is perpetuated in our cus- tom-house system, as at present administered; it now has no political
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significance, and nothing whatever to do with the rights of the people as against prerogative; it is simply an agency-a somewhat cumbrous one-for checking, by duplicate papers and account-books, the trans- actions in the office of the collector.
Randolph followed his " articles of high misdemeanor " to England, April, 1682, and, immediately on his arrival, was ordered to supply the attorney-general with proofs of his charges against the Massachusetts government. The business had been matured beforehand, and the formal proceedings took little time. Before he had been a month in England, says Palfrey, "he had virtually accomplished the object of his ambition and revenge. The blow with which the colony had so long been threatened was struck. The writ was issued, which sum- moned it to stand, for the defense of its political existence and of the liberty and property of its people, at the bar of a court in London."
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