History of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, Part 36

Author: Bean, Theodore Weber, 1833-1891, [from old catalog] ed; Buck, William J. (William Joseph), 1825-1901
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia, Everts & Peck
Number of Pages: 1534

USA > Pennsylvania > Montgomery County > History of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania > Part 36

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

The following correspondence with Governor John Penn shows the persistencey of the British government in efforts to enforce the odious measures of taxation, and the inability or unwillingness of the Governor to comprehend the true situation and temper of the colonists :

STATE HOUSE IN 1744.

" At a Council held at Philadelphia, on Wednesday, the 19th of February, 1766. Present : The Honourable John Penn, Esquire, Lieu- tenant-Governor, &c .; Lynford Lardner, Benjamin Chew, Richard Penn, Esurs.

"The Governor laid before the Board a letter he lately received by the paket from the Right Honourable Henry Seymour ('onway, Esq., one of his majesty's principal Secretaries of State, dated the 24th of October last, expressing the King's concern at the late commotions in some of the American colonies, which happened on account of a Inte Act of Parhament for collecting Stamp Duties, and setting forth his majesty's pleasure respecting the conduct to be observed by this Govern- ment in case any such disturbance should take place in Pennsylvania, which letter being read, was ordered to be entered, aml follows in these words, viz. :

"A Letter from the R't. Hon ble. H. S. Conway, Esq'r., to the Governor. "' ST. JAMES', October 24, 1765. "'Sir : It is with the greatest concern that bis majesty learns the disturbances which have arisen in some of the North American Colonies. If this evil should spread to the Government of Pennsylvania, where you preside, the utmost exertion of your prudence will be necessary 60 as justly to temper your conduct between that caution and coolness which the delieary of such a situation may demand on one hand and the vigour necessary to suppress ontrage and violence on the other. It is impossible at this distance to assist by any partienlar or positive in- struction, because you will find yourself necessarily obliged to take your resolution as particular circumstances and exegencies may require.

"' llis Majesty, and the servants he honors with his confidence, cannot but lament the ill-advised intemperance shown already in some of the provinces by taking up a conduct which can in no way contribute to the

155

THE COLONIAL ERAA.

removal of any real grievance they might labumr under, but may tend to obstruct and impede the exertion of His Majesty's benevolent attention to the ease and comfort as well as welfare of all his people. It is hoped and expected that this want of confidence in the justice and tenderness of the mother country, and this open resistance tu its authority, can only have found place among the lower and more ignorant of the people. The better and wiser part of the colonies will know that decency and sub- mission may prevail, not only to redress grievances, but to obtain grace and favour, while the outrage of a public violence can expect nothing but severity and chastisement. These sentiments you and all his majesty's servants, from a sense of your duty to and love of your country, will endeavour to excite and encourage; you will all, in a par- ticular manner, call upon them not to render their case desperate : you will, in the strongest colours, represent to them the dreadful consequences that must inevitably attend the forcible and violent resistance to Acts of the British Parliament, aod the scene of misery and calamity to them- selves and of mutual weakness and distraction to both countries insepa- rable from such a conduct.

"' If by lenient and persuasive methods yon can contribute to restore that peace and tranquillity to the provinces on which their welfare and happiness depend, you will do a most acceptable and essential service to your country. But having taken every step which the utmost prudence and lenity can dictate, in compassion to the folly and ignorance of some misguided people, you will not, on the other hand, fail to use your utmost power for the repelling of all acts of outrage and violence, and to provide for the maintenance of peace and good order in the province by such a timely exertion of force as the occasion may require, for which purpose you will make the proper applications to General Gage or Lord Colvill, commanders of his majesty's land and naval forces in America. For, however unwilling his majesty may consent to the exertion of such pow- ers as may endanger the safety of a single subject, yet can he nut permit his own dignity and the authority of the British Legislature to be trampled on by force and violence, and in nvow'd contempt of all order, duty and decorum. If the Subject is aggrieved, he knows in what man- ner legally and constitutionally to apply for relief ; but it is not suitable, either to the safety or dignity of the British Empire, that any individuals, under the pretence of redressing grievances, should presume to violate the public peace.

"""I am, with great truth and regard, Sir, " ' Your most obedient humble Servant, ICH. S CONWAY.

"' Deputy-Governor PenD.'

" The above letter having been taken into dne consideration, and an answer thereto prepared in order to be transmitted by the next pacquet, the same was approved by the Board, and is as follows :

" .1 Letter to the Right Honble. H. S. Conway, Esquire, from the Governor. " ' PHILADELPHIA, I9th February, 1766.

" " Sir : I had the honour of your letter of the 24th October last, re specting the disturbances which have lately been committed in severa of the North American colonies. Give me leave to assure you, Sir, tha Do one of his majesty's servants is more sensible than I am of the rash Dess and folly of those who have been concerned in these outrages, which at the same time that they violate the public tranquillity and set Government at nought, are undutiful and affrontive to the best of kings and productive of the most dangerous consequences, I am sorry to be under the necessity of informing you that the dissatisfaction with some of the late Acts of the British Legislature (particularly the Stamp .Act) is almost universal in all the colonies on the continent, and prevails among all ranks and orders of men ; but I should do great injustice to numbers of his majesty's faithful subjects if I did not represent to you at the same t' ne that the wiser and more considerate among them highly disapprove of and detest the violent and illegal measures which have been pursued in many of the colonies. In the province of Pennsylvania, where I have the honor to preside, matters have been conducted with more moderation and respect to his majesty and Parliament than in most others, and the giddy nmultitude have hitherto been restrained from com- mitting any arts of open violence.

"' Upon the arrival of the first cargo of stamp'd papers into this province, in the month of October last, John Hughes, of this city, who was reported and inderd generally known to be the person appointed to distribuite them, refused to take charge of them, tho' they were con- signed to him, under pretence that he had not received bis commission or had any authority to take them into his possession ; and there being no fort or place of security where I could lodge them on shore, I thought it most advisable to order them on bonrd his Majesty's Sloop of War, the

"Sardoine," Captain James Hawker, commander, stationed in the River Delaware, to whose care (on Hughes' afterwards resigning his office of Stamp Distributer), I have also committed all the papers which have since been sent by the Commissioners for the use of this province, till his Majesty's further orders can be received or another person shall be appointed to the office of distributor by the Commissioners, agreeable to the directions of the Act. The Americans have the most sanguine hopes that the remonstrances drawn up by the committees of the several Assemblys at the Congress hell for that purpose at New York last Fall, and transmitted by them to the Parliament, will produce a repeal of the Stamp Act ; but if they should be disappointed in their expectations, it is impossible to say to what length their irritated and turbulent spirits may carry them. Of this, however, Sir, you may rest assured, that I shall esteem it my indispensible duty on this and every other occasion to use every means in my power to preserve the public peace, and support to the utmost the honor and dignity of his Majesty's Government com- mitted to my care.

" '} have the honor to be, with great truth and regard, Sir, " Yr most oheit 'hble servant, ""JOHN PEAN."""

The Stamp Act excited the bitter and uneompro- mising hostility of all the colonies.1 The Sons of Liberty of New England and New York concerted with leading citizens of Pennsylvania, Virginia and the Carolinas, and a united protest went back to the mother-country, which resulted in the speedy recon- sideration of the measure. Benjamin Franklin had been commissioned by the anti-proprietary party of Pennsylvania to visit London as early as November, 1764, to secure the transfer of all proprietary estates to the erown, but the question of taxation without representation as embodied in the Stamp Act became of such widespread importance that he was appointed general agent for all the colonies,2 and played a con- spicuous part in the repeal of the infamous act. Franklin was summoned before the bar of the House of Commons on the 13th of February, 1766. In answer to questions, he declared that "America conkdl not pay the stamp tax for want of gold and silver, and from want of post-roads and means of sending stamps back into the country; that there were in North America about three hundred thousand white men from sixteen to sixty years of age; that the in- habitants of all the provinces together, taken at a. medium, doubled in about twenty-four years; that their demand for British manufactures increased much faster; that in 1723 the whole importation from Britain to Pennsylvania was but about fifteen

1 Dr. Franklin, with a view to place the execution of the act in proper hands, got his friend, John Hughes, nominated as stamp officer at Phila- delphia. On the arrival at Philadelphia, in October, 1765, of the stamps from England, the vessels hoisted their colors at half-mast, bells were muffled, and thousands of citizens assembled in a state of great excite- ment. Mr. Ilughes was called on to resign his commission, but he only agreed for the present not to perform the duties of the office. The in- habitants, determining not to encourage monopoly, determined to manu- facture for themselves. This touched a vital cord in Great Britain, and the clamors of her own manufacturers were raised in opposition to the oppressive act. The Stamp Act was repealed on the 18th of March, 1766, but the right of taxation by Parliament was reaffirmed .- Duy's "Hist. of Pennsylvania."

2 New England urged and organized continental resistance and non- conformity. "The hum of domestic industry was heard more and more. Young women would get together and merrily and emulously drive the spinning wheel from sunrise till dark, and every day the humor spread for being clad in home-spun."

156

HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.

thousand pounds sterling, and had already become near half a million ; that the exports of the province to Britain could not exceed forty thousand pounds."

"Do yon think it right," asked Grenville, "that America should be protected by this country, and pay no part of the expense?" "That is not the case," an- swered Franklin; "the colonies raised, clothed and paid during the last war twenty-five thousand men, and spent many millions." "Were you not reim- bursed by Parliament ?" rejoined Grenville. "Only what, in your opinion," answered Franklin, "we had advanced beyond our proportion ; and it was a very small part of what we spent. Pennsylvania, in par- ticular, disbursed about five hundred thousand pounds, and the reimbursements, in the whole, did not exceed sixty thousand pounds." "Does the distinction be- tween internal and external taxes exist in the charter of Pennsylvania ?" asked a friend of Grenville. "No," said Franklin; "I believe not." "Then," asked Charles Townshend, "may they not, by the same in- terpretation of their common rights as Englishmen, as declared by Magna Charta and the Petition of Right, object to the Parliament's right of external taxation ?" And Franklin answered instantly : "They never have hitherto. Many arguments have been lately used here to show them that there is no differ- ence, and that, if you have no right to tax them in- ternally, you have none to tax them externally, or make any other law to bind them. At present, they do not reason so ; but, in time, they may be convinced by these arguments."

The question of repeal came before the House of Commons on the 21st of February. Every seat had been taken ; between four and five hundred members were in attendance. Pitt was ill, but his zeal was above disease. "I must get up to the House as I can," said he ; " when in my place I feel 1 am toler- ably able to remain through the debate and cry aye to the repeal with no sickly voice." And through the huzzas of the lobby he hobbled into the House on crutches, swathed in flannels. Conway moved for leave to bring in a bill for the repeal of the American Stamp Act. It had interrupted British commerce, jeopardized debts to British merchants, stopped one- third of the manufacturers of Manchester, and in- creased the rates on land by throwing thousands of poor out of employment. The act, too, breathed op- pression. It annihilated juries and gave vast power to the Admiralty Courts. The lawyers might decide in favor of the right to tax, but the conflict would ruin both countries. In three thousand miles of ter- ritory the English had but five thousand troops, the Americans one hundred and fifty thousand fighting men. If they did not repeal the act, France and Spain would declare war, and protect the Americans. The colonies, too, would set up manufactories oftheir own. Why, then, risk the whole for so trifling an object :

Jenkinson, on the other side, moved a modification

of the act, insisting that the total repeal, demanded as it was with menaces of resistance, would be the overthrow of British authority in America. In reply to Jenkinson, Edmund Burke spoke in a manner un- usual in the House, connecting his argument with a new kind of political philosophy. About eleven Pitt rose. He conciliated the wavering by allowing good ground for their apprehensions, and, acknowledging his own perplexity in making an option between two ineligible alternatives, he pronounced for repeal, as due to the liberty of unrepresented subjects and in gratitude to their having supported England through three wars. He spoke with an eloquence which ex- pressed conviction, and with a suavity of manner which could not offend even the warmest friends of the act. " The total repeal," replied Grenville, "will persuade the colonies that Great Britain confesses itself without the right to impose taxes on them, and is reduced to make this confession by their menaces. Do the merchants insist that debts to the amount of three millions will be lost, and all fresh orders be countermanded ? Do not injure yourselves from fear of injury ; do not die from the fear of dying. With a little firmness, it will be easy to compel the colonists to obedience. America must learn that prayers are not to be brought to Cæsar through riot and sedition."

The lobbies were crammed with upwards of three hundred men, representing the trading interests of the nation, trembling and anxious, and waiting to learn the resolution of the House. Presently it was announced that two hundred and seventy-five had voted for the repeal of the act against one hundred and sixty-seven for softening and enforcing it. The roof of St. Stephen's rung with the long-continued shouts and cheerings of the majority. When the doors were thrown open and Conway went forth there was an involuntary burst of gratitude from the grave multitude which beset the avenues; they stopped him ; they gathered round him as children around a parent, as captives round a deliverer. The pure- minded man enjoyed the triumph; and while they thanked him, Edmund Burke, who stood near him, declares that 'his face was as if it had been the face of an angel.' As Grenville moved along, swelling with rage and mortification, they pressed on him with hisses. But when Pitt appeared the crowd rever- ently pulled off their hats, and their applause touched him with tender and lively joy. Many followed his chair home with benedictions. He felt no illness after his immense fatigue. It seemed as if what he saw and what he heard, the gratitude of a rescued people and the gladness of thousands, now become his own, had restored him to health; but his heart- felt and solid delight was not perfect till he found himself in his own house, with the wife whom he loved and the children for whom his fondness knew no restraint or bounds, and who all partook of the overflowing pride of their mother. This was the first great political lesson received by his second sou, then

157

THE COLONIAL ERA.

not quite seven years old, the eager and impetuous William, who, flushed with patriotic feeling, rejoiced that he was not the eldest born, but could serve his country in the House of Commons, like his father.

In the House of Lords ten peers spoke against the repeal, the session being the longest ever experienced by that body to that date. Sixty-one votes were recorded against repeal and seventy-three in favor. Royal sanction was given the measure on the 18th day of March, 1766, and the odious Stamp Act was a matter of history. The colonies had triumphed.1 The sense of peace and joy resulting from the repeal of the Stamp Act was of short duration. The King and his political followers smarted under their defeat, and regarded the repeal as "a fatal compliance" which had "planted thorns " under his royal pillow and forever "wounded the majesty of England." "The administration is dead and only lying in state," was the common criticism of the hour. A keen satire still

1 The joy of the colonies was, for a time, unmixed with apprehension. Virginia voted a statue to the King, and an obelisk on which were to be engraved the names of those who, in England, had signalized them- selves for freedom. " My thanks they shall have cordially, " said Waslı- lagton, "for their opposition to any act of oppression." The conse- quences of enforcing the Stamp Act, he was convinced, "would have been more direful than usually apprehended." Otis, at a meeting at the town-hall in Boston, to fix a time for the rejoirings, told the people that the distinction between inland taxes and port duties was without founda- tion ; for whoever had a right to impose the one had a right to impose the other, and, therefore, as the Parliament had given up the one, they had given up the other ; and the merchants were fools if they sulunitted any longer to the laws restraining their trade, which ought to be free. A bright day in May was set apart for the display of the public gladness, and the spot where resistance to the Stamp Act began was the centre of attraction. At one in the morning the bell nearest Liberty Tree was the first to be rung; at dawn colors and pendants rose over the house-

tops all around it, and the steeple of the nearest meeting-house was hung with banners. During the day all prisoners for debt were re- leased hy subscription. In the evening the town shone as though night had not come, an obelisk on the common was brilliant with a loyal in- scription, the houses round Liberty Tree exhibited illuminated figures of the King, of Pitt and Camden aml Barre, and Liberty Tree itself was deco- rated with lanterns till its boughs could holl no more. All the wisest agreed that disastrous consequences would have ensued from the attempt to enforce the act, so that never was there a more rapid transition of a people from gloom to transport. They compared themselves to a bird escaped from the net of the fowler, and once more striking its wings in the upper air ; or to Joseph, the Israelite, whom Providence had likewise wonderfully redeemed from the perpetual bondage into which he was sold by his eller brethren.

The clergy from the pulpit joined in the fervor of patriotism and the joy of success. " The Americans would not have submitted," said Chauncey. " History affords few examples of a more general, generous and just sense of liberty in any country than has appeared in America within the year past." Such were Mayhew's words, and while all the continent was calling out and cherishing the name of Pitt, the greatest statesman of England, the conqueror of Canada and the Ohio, the foun- der of empire, the apostle of freedom, "the genius and guardian of Britain and British America." " To you," said Mayhew, speaking from the heart of the people and as if its voice could be beard across the ocean, "to you, grateful America, attributes that she is reinstated in her former liberties. The universal joy of America, blessing you as our father, and sending up ardent vows to lleaven for you, must give you a sublime and truly god-like pleasure; it might, perhaps, give yon vigor to take up your bed and walk, like those cured by the word of Him who came from heaven to make us free indeed. America calls you over and over again her father ; live long in health, happiness and honor. Be it late when you must cease to plead the cause of liberty on earth."- Bancroft's " Hist. of U. S."

further wounded the household of state, shrewdly predicting the independence of the American colo- nies. The causes which hastened the close of our colonial era were still active. Parliament reasserted its supremacy and resolved to try a new mode of taxation.

Heavy duties were imposed on goods, wares and merchandise; necessities and luxuries were offered to rich and poor subject to the tax or duty imposed without the assent of the colonies. John Dickinson of Pennsylvania, led public opinion in resisting the right of Parliamentary taxation. So persistent was the opposition to the measure that the home govern- ment modified the law, 1770, retaining only a tax of threepence a pound on tea, and yet so uncompro- mising was the spirit of Pennsylvania to the principle of the law that "this duty was paid on but one single chest of tea."

The Assembly declared against the "iniquitous act." Governor Penn was advised by the secretary of colonial affairs to prorogue the Assembly. The Assembly resolved "they had the right to sit on their own adjournments." And this popular branch of the provincial government continued their agents at London with tull pay and emoluments of office to protest against a "tea tax " or any other tax involy- ing the same principle, and also to oppose any plan that might be proposed for an American representa- tion in Parliament, " the principle of Pennsylvania being that taxation of the colonies should not in any shape be allowed except by the Provincial As- sembly." "I will freely spend nineteen shillings in the pound," said Franklin, "to defend my right of giving or refusing the other shilling, and after all, if I cannot defend that right, I can retire cheerfully with my little family into the boundless woods of America, which are sure to afford freedom and subsist- ence to any man who can bait a hook or pull a trigger."

"The Americans," said Thomas Mason, the leader of the Virginia bar, "are hasty in expressing their gratitude, if the repeal of the Stamp Act is not at least a tacit compact that Great Britain will never again tax us." Laymen, lawyers, preachers and philoso- phers all united in support of a principle deemed essential to the development of the colonies, and for the maintenance of which they accepted the chal- lenge to arms.

PROVINCIAL GOVERNORS.

1623 .- The Dutch planted a colony on the Delaware, under Cornelius Jacob May, appointed Governor of the West India Company, under the unthority of the States-General.

1624 .- William Useling appointed Governor of the Swedish colony to be established on the Delaware, but he never came here.

1630 .- David Peterson De Vries (Dutch).

1631 .- John Printz (Swedish).

1638 .- Peter Minnits (Swedish, but himself a native of Holland).

1640 .- William Kieft, Dutch Governor of New York.

1643 .- John Printz (Swedish).

1653 .- Papegoia (son-in-law to Printz).

1654 .- Risingh.

158

HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.

1657 .- Alrichs. 1658 .- John Paul Jaquet.1 1659 .- Beekman.1 1664 .- Robert Carr.2

1673 .- Anthony Colve, Dutch Governor of New York.

1674 .- Sir Edmund Andross, English Governor of New York.

1681 .- William Penn, founder of the province.

1684 .- Governor's Council, Thomas Lloyd, president.

1687 .- Five commissioners appointed by William Penn.

1688 .- John Blackwell, Lieutenant-Governor.

1690,-Governor's Council.

1691 .- Thomas Lloyd, Deputy Governer.

1692 .- Benjamin Fletcher, Governor of New York.

1693 .- William Markham, Lientenant-Governer.

1700 .- William Penn.

1701 .- Andrew Hamilton, Deputy Governor.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

History of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, Part 36

Author: Bean, Theodore Weber, 1833-1891, [from old catalog] ed; Buck, William J. (William Joseph), 1825-1901 Publication date: 1884 Publisher: Philadelphia, Everts & Peck Number of Pages: 1534

Author: Bean, Theodore Weber, 1833-1891, [from old catalog] ed; Buck, William J. (William Joseph), 1825-1901
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia, Everts & Peck
Number of Pages: 1534