INDEBTEDNESS OF THE COLONISTS 599 The planters were seriously embarrassed in 1764 owing to bad harvests and the burden of the war debt. Rapid depreciation of the currency would have relieved the situation. The alternative of going through the bankruptcy courts was subject to formidable restrictions, as a Virginia act for the relief of insolvent debtors had been disallowed by the mother country. The principal merchants of London, Bristol, Liverpool and Glasgow had convinced the Board of Trade that a debtor's voluntary surrender of his assets in order that they might be realised and distributed among his creditors would inevitably involve injustices since nine-tenths of the creditors lived in Great Britain.1 The extent of the indebtedness of the colonists and the difficulties in the way of reducing it now became issues of first-class importance. In the northern colonies the trade depression forced the question upon the attention of the merchants. They were already so indebted to their correspondents in Great Britain and the purchasing power in the colonies was so restricted that they had to curtail their orders. A number of merchants in Boston entered into an agreement in August 1764 to reduce their importation of English cloth, and the idea of resorting to non-consumption as a palliative led to the adoption of non-importation as a weapon in the conflict with the mother country on the question of taxation. To lessen the dependence on Great Britain it was also suggested that home industries should be fostered. A Society for the Promotion of Arts, Agriculture and Economy was launched in New York and it offered premiums for excellence in local manufactures. Statistics show that during the operation of the non-importation agreements the volume of trade between Great Britain and the chief ports-Boston, New York and Philadelphia-fell heavily. Colonial merchants were able to dispose of their old stocks and to call in their outstanding debts while they were strictly limiting their future orders. Many of them were thus in a position to take advantage of a considerable fall in the exchange rates and remit payments to their correspondents in Great Britain. But these were temporary expedients. The question was whether the northern colonies could develop their industrial resources on a permanent basis. When the Board of Trade called for a report on colonial manufactures in 1766 the accounts sent by the respective governors probably belittled what had been effected. If allowance is made for this, however, subsequent events proved that little progress had been made. What capital there was found its way into foreign trade and the fisheries, and the appeal of the frontier maintained the scarcity of labour for manufactures. The economic structure of the southern colonies was different. No relief could be found in industry, for the existence of slavery meant concentration 1 A.P.C., Col. IV, 641-2. 2 See Clark, Victor S., History of Manufactures in the United States, 1607-1860, pp. 207-10. on the staple crops of tobacco and rice. The planters had mortgaged their estates to the full, and much of the land was so exhausted that it seemed that some form of debt repudiation accompanied by resort to the new lands to the west was the only remedy. In Virginia there was an insistent cry for paper money to ease the pressure of debt and also a demand that the boundaries of the colony should be extended on the west; but to these two claims the policy of the mother country was strongly opposed. It was difficult to restrict imports, for the greater part of the commerce in the south was in the hands of English and Scottish merchants. These were said to number some two thousand and the planters were heavily indebted to them. Nonimportation, as George Washington pointed out, could only be effected by going over the heads of the merchants and persuading the people not to buy imported goods.1 As a matter of fact importations were heavy in the south during the years of resistance to the Stamp Act and the Townshend duties. The merchants seem to have remained fairly confident that the debts would be ultimately paid, for they did not discourage their customers from purchasing imported goods. They had so long gone on the principle that debtors cannot drive hard bargains in selling their crops that they were not prepared to abandon it. The British merchants, however, made great play with the extent of colonial indebtedness in the agitation for the repeal of the Stamp Act. It was alleged that the outstanding debts amounted to between four and five millions. Witnesses examined by the House of Commons obviously attempted to set the figure as high as possible and Grenville did what he could to discredit their evidence. The main purpose of the committee of merchants, of which Barlow Trecothick was the leader, was to restore the old relations with the colonies. They did not like the recent innovations, partly because they caused disturbance in America, and partly because the collection of taxes in specie would make it more difficult for their customers to make remittances in that form. They regarded the debt itself with complacency and were co-operating with colonial merchants in trying to convict the Government of placing obstacles in the way of its liquidation. The merchants also brought manufacturers into line by withholding orders, to induce them to send up petitions to the House of Commons in which the extent of unemployment was emphasised. It is interesting to find that in this campaign the West Indian merchants made common cause with the merchants who traded with the northern 1 The Writings of George Washington, ed. by W. C. Ford, п, 263-7. 2 The figure of £4,000,000 is usually quoted from the Annual Register. The Newcastle Papers give details of the estimate and a higher total. The amount of the debt was undoubtedly exaggerated. 3 Henry Cruger, jr., to his Father, Bristol, 14 Feb. 1766, Commerce of Rhode Island, 1, 140. Henry Cruger, jr., to Aaron Lopez, Bristol, 1 March 1766, ibid. 1, 145. WEAK POINTS OF TRADE WITH THE COLONIES 601 colonies. Together they drew up a programme which was virtually put into operation by the Rockingham administration.1 For the moment mercantile opinion reasserted itself against the new imperial policy. In the face of the danger to trade the West Indies joined hands with the continental colonies. The duties levied on the export of sugar, pimento and coffee from the West Indies were repealed and an inroad was made on the Navigation Laws by declaring the chief ports of Jamaica and Dominica free to foreign vessels. The colonial merchants expressed their thanks to the committee of merchants in London for their good services in securing the repeal of the Stamp Act and "for strenuous efforts and unremitted application in favour of the liberties and trade of America".2 Subsequent events proved that the success of the merchants' agitation in 1766 was due to the special circumstances of the moment. The settlement which they had commended to the Rockingham administration was short-lived. The continued trade depression in the northern colonies enabled the more radical elements to keep the opposition to the mother country alive. In Virginia and Maryland the twofold problem of land hunger and indebtedness was becoming more urgent. The struggle was renewed when the Boston town meeting initiated a campaign against the Townshend duties in the form of non-consumption pledges in October 1767; the merchants of the port adopting the principle of non-importation in the following spring. The Quaker merchants of Philadelphia, however, refused to come in until opportunity had been afforded the British merchants to exert pressure on the Government. But the London merchants did not think it prudent to move in the matter. Their attitude is to be explained by the fact that they did not consider that the success of 1766 could be repeated. The economic situation at home was much easier. There had been a good harvest; the demand for English cloth on the continent was firm; there was no extensive unemployment which could be exploited. Barlow Trecothick himself acknowledged, when pleading for the total repeal of the Townshend duties in the House of Commons,3 that British trade had not seriously suffered from the renewal of the non-importation movement. The British merchants were also aware that the Americans had raised wide constitutional issues which prejudiced their case. It was obviously no longer a quarrel to be settled by commercial adjustments. Probably they were also coming to see that the colonial trade was not all it had been assumed to be. The years of dislocation caused by the adoption of non-importation agreements in America must have revealed to British trading-houses some of the long-standing Adams, J. T., Revolutionary New England, p. 340, note 1, prints part of the agreement arrived at by the Committees of the West Indian and North American Merchants on 10 March 1766, from Brit. Mus., Add. MSS, 8133 C. 2 Letter in Massachusetts Historical Society Transactions, Feb. 1924. 3 Schlesinger, A. M., Colonial Merchants and the American Revolution, p. 238. disadvantages of colonial business. Much capital was tied up in it because long term credit had to be given. There are definite indications of attempts to reduce the time allowed for payment. Eighteen months, it appears, were usually given by Glasgow merchants in the middle of the century.1 Later, twelve months seem the normal time, but some merchants were trying to insist on nine. They asserted that the shorter period represented the utmost extent of credit they could themselves secure. Commercial correspondence is full of complaints about outstanding debts and merchants engaged in the American trade were certainly often seriously pressed by their own creditors at home. Sometimes they had the bills of exchange sent them by their American customers protested when presented for payment, and sometimes they found it impossible to sell a vessel which they were instructed to dispose of in liquidation of debt at anything like the price which the debtor expected. It is not surprising, therefore, that they preferred a nearer market in which shorter credit was asked and in which the risks of trade were not so considerable. Industrial developments were providing new outlets for capital at home and colonial markets were beginning to occupy a less important place in British commerce. When the merchants of London came to consider the position created by the recognition of the independence of the United States in 1783 they arrived at the conclusion that the superiority of British manufactures would ensure them a preference over those of other countries, and if the future trade was conducted on a liberal system it was not likely that the Americans would make attempts to set up manufactures of their own. They would be of necessity mainly occupied in the clearing and cultivating of the land.3 This sensible conclusion was largely justified by the event. 1 Renwick, Robert, Records of the Burgh of Glasgow, VI. 'Letter of Hayley and Hopkins, London, 24 June 1769, in Commerce of Rhode Island, I, 282-3. Observations of London Merchants on American Trade, 22 July 1783; Am. H.R. July 1913, pp. 773-80. CHAPTER XXI THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMPIRE FROM BACON TO BLACKSTONE IN the moulding of modern thought no factor exercises a more potent influence than the idea of evolution. It predisposes the mind when confronted with an array of facts to seek for some connecting principle by which they are related and to prove that there is an orderly development of idea. Governed by this conception, historians have been able to demonstrate the continuity of English history and to show how one age has prepared the ground for the work of its successor. The long range of England's history exhibits only one violent break from tradition, the Puritan Revolution, which proved to be but a short episode in the flowing tale of the national life. The concept of evolution, with the expectant, critical attitude of mind which is its offspring, was unknown to the people of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Had the idea of growth and development been as strongly rooted in their minds as it is in those of their successors, then the possibility of friction between the mother country and the colonies might have been generally anticipated. But even the ablest writers and thinkers before the eighteenth century seldom endeavoured to trace any connecting principle amid the facts with which they were confronted; for their view of history was a static one. Apart from a few exceptions they seemed unaware of the powerful forces by which the actions of men are inspired, took no account of the influence of environment on human development, and regarded government as a piece of machinery rather than a natural growth. Action preceded thought, and political theories were not formulated until events had suggested the need for them. Contemporary historians of the Empire, such as Sir Dalby Thomas1 and Oldmixon,2 contented themselves with presenting a collection of facts, for it never occurred to them that the relationship between the mother country and the colonies raised any difficulties, and their attitude faithfully mirrored that of the mass of the people. Until men had progressed beyond the stage of regarding history statically, it was impossible for them to appreciate at its true value the importance of events which are now recognised as beacon lights in British colonial history. In the development of English colonial policy few events have had more significance than the Restoration and the Revolution. With the Restoration England turned her back on Puritanism, the Empire was augmented by the acquisition of new 1 Thomas, Dalby, Hist. Account of the Rise and Growth of the West India Colonies and of the Great Advantage they are to England in respect of Trade, Lond. 1690. 1 Oldmixon, John, The British Empire in America, Lond. 1708. |