faithfully and truly execute the Acts; to keep lists of all entrances and clearances, with detailed information regarding the kind of ship, its build, when and where registered, master's name, owner's name, tonnage, guns (if any), men, cargo, etc., and to deliver these lists to the governor, who would transmit them to England; to examine al' certificates, cockets, and navigation bonds, to see that they were correct and authentic, to sign and seal them, and to turn them over to the collector, who would sign them and either retain them himself or lodge them with the governor; and finally to certify to the collector that ships were properly entered and cleared. In some of the colonies they seem to have co-operated in seizing vessels for illegal trading, and in the tobacco and sugar colonies, particularly in times of war, to have acted with the collector in getting "the trade in readiness against the time the convoys should arrive". Usually they were paid by fees but sometimes by percentages, both of which were as a rule insufficient to attract the best men unless other employment furnished additional income. Fees were controlled at first by the governor, later by the Assembly, and after 1760 by the Home Government, which endeavoured to effect a reform of the whole system.1 There were in the colonies collectors of provincial revenues, levied by the colonial Assemblies, and collectors of the king's casual revenues, such as quit-rents, licences, escheats, fines, and forfeitures, and of royal export dues, such as the two shillings a hogshead on tobacco in Virginia and the 4 per cent. export duty in Barbados and the Leeward Islands. The collectors of the latter were appointed from England and held office under the commissioners of the 4 per cent. there. But the only collectors in America on the English establishment were those designated in the Act of 1673 to collect the Plantation duty provided for by that Act. Appointments were made in England of collectors for this purpose as early as 27 November 1673, but it is quite certain that none of these early appointees ever went to the colonies, though it appears that in some of the colonies collections were made in 1674 and 1675 by other officials and by them transmitted to England. Gradually in one colony after another the system was set in motion-in North Carolina in 1677, New England in 1678, Pennsylvania in 1682, Rhode Island in 1709, Connecticut and Nova Scotia in 1715-until finally along the mainland and in the West Indies a chain of officials came into being, located at fortyseven different ports and including nearly ninety surveyors, riding surveyors, comptrollers, collectors, searchers, preventive officers, land waiters, and tide waiters. In addition there were watermen, boatmen, 1 North Carolina Records, xxv, 196–8, 225; 5 George III, c. 45, § xlvii; 10 George III, c. 37, § ii; 19 George III, c. 22, § v. 2 Calendar of Treasury Books, 1672-5, pp. 424, 427, 460. CUSTOMS OFFICIALS 293 and clerks. At first the chief officials were paid by percentage allowances, but after 1698 by salaries, ranging from £200 (Philadelphia) to £30 (Roanoke) for a collector, £75 for a searcher, and £30 and £25 for a waiter. In addition the collector had fees, and a share in forfeitures whenever he acted as informant. Over all were the surveyors-general, who took the place of the governors as responsible supervisors, beginning with Randolph in New England in 1678, Patrick Mein and Robert Quary later, for the whole territory in America. After 1709-there were three surveyors-general, one for the northern district, one for the southern including Jamaica and the Bahamas, and one for Barbados and the Leeward Islands. Still later, three were provided for the mainland alone. In the eighteenth century the surveyor-general was paid £495 a year, including transportation expenses. This arrangement continued until 1767 when, with the creation of the American Board of Customs Commissioners sitting at Boston, only the customs officials of the island colonies remained on the English establishment, the others constituting a separate establishment under the Commissioners at Boston. In 1753 Grenville estimated the returns from the Plantation duty as averaging in seven years from £1000 to £2000 a year and the cost of collection from £7000 to £8000, leaving a deficit to be made up from the Exchequer of at least £5000 annually. So much was England willing to pay for what she considered the proper regulation of colonial trade. Instructions to the American customs officials were issued as early as 1685 and were repeated a number of times after 1696. The surveyors-general were to serve as supervisors at large within certain prescribed areas. They were authorised to give such orders and directions as they should find necessary for the service and were empowered to enter any ship or dwelling to search for prohibited or uncustomed goods, to seize the same, and to put in force all laws and orders for the better collecting of the rates and duties. Though individual surveyors-general had sat on governors' councils from early times, yet after 1733 all were formally so privileged, ex officiis, in the region over which they had jurisdiction. They appointed the riding surveyor, whose business it was to watch over regions remote and sparsely settled where smuggling was likely to be carried on, and who was empowered, as he moved from place to place, to inspect, search, and seize, whenever necessary, all suspicious vessels. The comptroller served as a check on the collector, inspecting his accounts, joining with him in examining vessels and seeing that the Navigation Acts were enforced. 1 P.R.O. Audit Office, Declared Accounts, Bundle 757, Rolls 801, 803; Auditors of Imprest Accounts, New York Public Library. 2 Cal. Treas. Books and Papers, 1729-33, no. 167. 3 Grenville Papers, II, 113-4: Maryland Archives, xx, 167-71, 351-5, 505-7; xxIII, 4, 358-60; v, 521; House of Lords MSS, N.S. п, 473-5. The collector was to receive the duties arising under the Act of 1673, but at times he was puzzled how to interpret it and at other times was none too efficient in his attempt to do so.1 One of his most troublesome tasks was the examination of certificates and cockets in order to detect forgeries and erasures, and in cases where the ship captains furnished bonds in the colonies to be sure that the sureties were good and the terms of the bonds carried out. His was the duty to sue out the bonds in the local courts. He had to give a bond himself for £500 and to require a similar bond of the naval officer; to collect the duties in silver or its equivalent, and to make return to the Commissioners of the Customs every year, properly attested by the comptroller or the surveyor. In many of the colonies he had charge of Mediterranean passes, though in New England that business was looked after by the secretary of the colony. When he collected, as was sometimes the case, the king's revenues in the colony, he was expected to bind himself not to engage in trade, but the attempt to prevent all customs officials from engaging in trade was found to be impossible, though the practice was seemingly contrary to law.2 Pluralism prevailed very widely in all branches of colonial administration, north and south and in the West Indies, owing partly to the scarcity of good men and partly to inadequate salaries, but it was particularly common in the customs service. Deputation and absenteeism, patronage and the farming of offices also helped to vitiate the personnel. It is a suggestive commentary on previous practices that in 1761 the accountant disbursing the salaries of customs officers should have been required to furnish certificates that "the several officers were living at the respective times they were paid”, and that in 1763 the Treasury should "have ordered all the officers belonging to the Customs in America and the West Indies to be fully instructed in their Duty to repair forthwith to the respective Stations and constantly to reside there for the future"." No part of the collector's duties was more troublesome than the seizure of vessels for illegal trading. Breaches of the Acts were to be tried in the vice-admiralty courts in America. General admiralty jurisdiction covered (a) felonies, such as murder and mutiny, torts, and other offences on the high seas; (b) piracy, which was provided for by special commissions under an Act of 11-12 William III; and (c) spoil goods or prizes, also provided for by special legislation.* But owing to the provisions of the Navigation Acts and to the rulings of the lawyers in their interpretation of the Acts, this jurisdiction took on a form unknown to the vice-admiralty courts in the seaports of England, where cases of illegal trading, within the three-mile limit 1 Cf. North Carolina Records, VI, 1023. According to an interpretation of 20 Henry VI, c. 5. 3 P.R.O. Audit Office, Declared Accounts, Bundle 818, Roll 1064; A.P.C., Colonial, IV, P. 570. 6 Anne, c. 37, §§ ii, iii. VICE-ADMIRALTY COURTS 295 or in the waters of bays and rivers, were dealt with in the commonlaw courts of the counties or boroughs or in some cases were carried up to London for trial. According to the Act of 1660 breaches were to be tried in any court of record. Though opinion prevailed that an admiralty court, rightly speaking, was a court of record, yet in view of the language used in the Act the decision was reached that only common-law courts were there meant.1 During the years from 1660 to 1696 many trials of this kind were held in the colonies, but though occasionally such cases were tried in what were called admiralty courts (chiefly in Barbados and Jamaica, but also in Bermuda and New York2), more commonly they were brought before either the governor, the governor and council, the governor and assistants, the county courts, or special courts of oyer and terminer provided for the purpose. General sentiment in the colonies undoubtedly favoured jury trial for all such cases, and in Massachusetts in 1697 and in Pennsylvania in 1698 acts were passed requiring trial by jury, but these acts were disallowed by the Crown. It is not surprising that the common-law courts should have claimed sole or concurrent jurisdiction, for the extension of viceadmiralty jurisdiction to illegal trading was distinctly an innovation. The obscure wording of the Act of 1696 did not help matters, stating as it did that juries might be employed, provided they were properly selected, and yet at the same time taking it for granted that viceadmiralty courts already existed in America and might be utilised for the purpose. Great uncertainty prevailed as to how to handle breaches of the acts. Governor Nicholson suggested that they be dealt with in exchequer courts as having to do with the king's revenue, while others, seeming to find a distinction between ordinary admiralty business and breaches of the Acts of Trade,3 wished the latter tried in special courts, on the ground that the governor's commission, authorising him to erect admiralty courts, seemed to restrict the jurisdiction of such courts to marine matters only. The situation was very unsatisfactory to those who were shaping the colonial system in America, for colonial juries could not be depended on to convict, and though some condemnations took place, many vessels escaped and illegal trade flourished. Existing methods were too varied, decentralised and ineffective. British control in other respects was tending towards uniformity and consolidation, and if such control was not to fail at an important point, the enforcement of the Acts must cease to be local and must be managed from Whitehall and Doctors' Commons. 1 Cal. St. Pap. Col. 1702, pp. 480, 554-5; Richard West, counsellor to the Board of Trade, on "Admiralty Jurisdiction", Č.O. 323/8, L. 10. 2E.g. Cal. St. Pap. Col. 1661-8, p. 238; 1689-92, nos. 2636, 2705; 1702, p. 462; Minutes of the Common Council of New York, 1, 69-70. * Such a distinction is clearly implied in the instructions to Governor Windsor of Barbados, 1662, Cal. St. Pap. Col. 1661-8, p. 81; cf. 1702, no. 570. Edward Randolph, who for twenty years had been working for greater efficiency in America, became the chief advocate of a more rigid system of centralised control. Obtaining leave of absence from Governor Nicholson, at that time of Maryland and himself an ardent believer in consolidation, he sailed for England in 1696 to lay before the authorities there whatever was "most proper for His Majesty's service". On reaching England in December he laid before the Commissioners of the Customs a body of proposals for the more effectual putting into execution of the Acts of Trade, and appeared in person before the newly appointed Board of Trade in support of his plans. After reading various communications and holding a number of hearings, the Board, with the approval of the Treasury and the Admiralty, sent in two representations to the lords justices, recommending a regular series of vice-admiralty courts for all the colonies. A hearing was held before a committee of the House of Lords, in February and March 1697, at which Randolph was present, together with proprietors of the private colonies or their agents, who were determined to prevent, if possible, this attempt to restrict their independence by the erection of vice-admiralty courts exercising jurisdiction within their borders. The situation was undoubtedly a critical one for the proprietary and corporate colonies, as it represented a highly organised attempt of the English authorities to extend, in an important direction, the authority of the Crown in the colonies. The Act of 1696, the establishment of the Board of Trade, the more peremptory instructions to governors and collectors, the more efficient prosecution of bonds, and other similar features were but preliminary to that noteworthy effort which the Board of Trade was soon to make to unite the private colonies to the Crown and to bring about in the interest of trade and defence the consolidation of England's colonial possessions. The Board of Trade's recommendations were approved by the Privy Council, which on 24 February 1697 directed the Board and the Commissioners of the Customs to draw up a list of officials for the new vice-admiralty courts, and on 7 April issued the proper warrants to Sir Charles Hedges, judge of the High Court of Admiralty, authorising him to grant special commissions under the seal of the Admiralty, empowering the governors to erect vice-admiralty courts in the colonies and to appoint judges, advocates, registrars, and marshals, subject to the approval of the Admiralty at home. In due time, twelve such courts were established, from New Hampshire and Massachusetts to Barbados "and the territories thereto belonging",5 which exercised 1 Maryland Archives, xx, 236-7. 2 Cal. St. Pap. Col. 1693-6, no. 2187; North Carolina Records, 1, 461. 3 House of Lords MSS, N.S. 11, 419, 424-5, 446; Cal. St. Pap. Col. 1696-7, nos. 100, 108, 116, 120, 131, 133, 142, 149, 511. 4 House of Lords MSS, N.S. п, 440, 444, 448-54. 5 Cal. St. Pap. Col. 1700, p. 132; C.O. 324/7, ff. 206–7. |