HILLSBOROUGH AND THE COLONISTS 667 danger. The coercive policy of the Bedfords, who now joined the Government and in a great measure controlled the party, led presently to the resignation of Shelburne, which was followed by that of Chatham.1 Before this, Grafton (9 October 1767), as a concession to the Bedfords, had removed Shelburne from the control of colonial affairs which he had hitherto exercised as Secretary of State for the Southern Department, and instituted a third Secretaryship of State for the Colonies, to which Lord Hillsborough was appointed (January 1768). Shelburne still believed that it was unnecessary to send a single soldier to America, and that the colonies would "return to the Mother-country of themselves from affection and from interest, when once the form of their contribution should be agreed upon".2 His retirement involved the laying aside of the scheme which he had elaborated for settling the several problems arising out of the newly acquired lands beyond the Alleghanies. Hillsborough at once instructed Governor Bernard to call upon the Massachusetts Assembly to rescind its resolutions for the Circular Letter, and to dissolve it if it refused. The governors of the other provinces were directed to dissolve their Assemblies if they favoured the Massachusetts appeal. The several Assemblies were dissolved accordingly, but only to return with increased majorities against the governments. After the dissolution of the Massachusetts Assembly, the Selectmen of Boston summoned a convention of delegates from the province to meet at Faneuil Hall. Thus once more a movement was begun for revolutionary organisation. When the new Assembly met, it refused, with strict legal justification, to provide quarters for the troops in the town, arguing that there were barracks available on Castle Island. These were almost useless for the purpose in hand, since they were two or three miles outside the city. The Assembly then refused to do business whilst surrounded by an armed force, and when the governor adjourned it to Cambridge, passed resolutions protesting against his right to do so, and against the establishment of "a standing army" in a colony in time of peace. A violent agitation was begun against the soldiers whose presence was denounced by the Assembly as a foreign invasion. The melancholy example of Ireland was quoted as a warning against British tyranny, and found no doubt an echo in the heart of many an Irish emigrant. When Parliament met in the autumn of 1768, both Houses passed resolutions condemning the disloyal spirit of Massachusetts, the nonimportation agreements, and the Boston Convention. Led by the Duke of Bedford, they addressed the King, praying that the promoters of rebellion should be brought to London and tried under an Act of Henry VIII "for the trial of treasons committed outside the realm". Under this Act the murderers of Governor Parke had been brought 1 Fitzmaurice, Life of Shelburne, 1, 387, 393. 2 Ibid. 1, 384. home for trial in 1711.1 This measure was never put into execution, but it provided an additional source of irritation to the Americans, who saw in it yet one more instance of British determination to restrict their liberties. It helped to inspire the "Resolves of 1769", by which Virginia once more led the way in constitutional opposition. A series of resolutions drawn up by George Mason was introduced into the House of Burgesses by Washington. The military distinction and high character of that wealthy planter had already secured him a position of great authority in the Old Dominion. The Virginia Resolves, which were presently circulated amongst the other Assemblies and adopted by them, claimed that the sole right of imposing taxes lay in the General Assembly with the assent of the King or his governor; that the colonists had the right to petition the Crown for redress of grievances, and that taking any person from the colony for trial beyond the seas was highly derogatory to the rights of British subjects. The Cabinet was divided over its American policy. The tea tax had produced less than £300, and the effect of the non-importation agreements was beginning to be felt. Relations with France were very strained, and already Americans had talked of appealing to her.2 The repeal of Townshend's Act as foolish and imprudent was increasingly urged. Grafton and Camden were in favour of repealing all the new taxes. But Lord North, the Bedford section, and the representatives of the King were in favour of retaining the tax upon tea for the purpose of "keeping up the right". By a majority of one, the Cabinet decided to retain it (1 May). The governors were informed of the Cabinet's intention, and Hillsborough added an official assurance that it entertained no design to propose any further taxes on America for the purpose of raising a revenue. The idea of making the colonies pay for their own defence was thus at length abandoned. Grafton, although in a minority in his own Cabinet, did not resign till January 1770. The suppression of Wilkes and the Middlesex election were agitating the country. The King's Speech had denounced the action of the Americans as unwarrantable. Chatham, who had returned to public life, vigorously attacked the measures which had driven the colonists into excesses, and pleaded for the removal of the cause which had occasioned the discontent of two millions of people. He was followed by Camden, Barré and Burke. But the King sent, not for Chatham as the nation expected, but for North. At last he had discovered and secured the minister for whom he had been seeking ever since the retirement of Bute, a minister who, with the aid of the court party, a divided Opposition, and his own skilful address, was both able and content to manage Parliament in 1 Cal. St. Pap. Col. 1710-11, p. xlv, nos. 764-806; 1711-12, p. xl. 2 E.g. Boston Gazette, 20 Sept. 1768; Holmes, A., Annals, 1, 177. 3 George III to Lord North, May 1769, and 11 Sept. 1774. REPEAL OF THE REVENUE ACT 669 accordance with the will of the Crown. North was a Tory, shrewd and capable, a man of imperturbable temper, and an excellent debater. But his chief merit in the eyes of George III was his profound devotion to his sovereign. Unhappily he placed it above his duty to his country and his own convictions. North soon seized the opportunity offered by a petition of London merchants to introduce the promised bill for repealing all Townshend's duties, except the 3d. on tea (15 March-12 April 1770). The retention of the tea duty he defended on the grounds that it differed from the others in that they were laid on English manufactures and had proved harmful to trade, whilst the duty on tea was in perfect harmony with commercial precedents. But in fact it had precisely the same intention and effect as the Declaratory Act. The tea tax was retained for the purpose of asserting the authority of Parliament in answer to the opposition of the Americans.1 As a source of revenue it was ridiculous. Had revenue been aimed at, the substitution of the old tax of 12d. on tea when imported into England would, according to both Hutchinson and Franklin, have raised the sum required and provoked no opposition whatever. As it was, the repeal of the rest of Townshend's Act gave the agitators in America the stimulus of a triumph, and the retention of the tea tax left them with a grievance over a principle. The duties levied by the older laws on tobacco, wine, sugar and molasses were also retained, as well as the whole new and efficient machinery for enforcing them. But the Mutiny Act was quietly allowed to lapse, and no attempt was made to punish Massachusetts or South Carolina for refusing to furnish supplies for the troops. Permission was also granted for an issue of paper currency, which was urgently needed in a time of rising prices. The conciliatory nature of these measures, combined with the promise in Hillsborough's circular, might well have saved the situation for the time being, had there been a general willingness to accept it as an earnest gesture of compromise and good-will. That it did not do so demonstrates that nothing short of some ample and generous measure for revising the whole status of the colonies, urged and granted in the grand manner of which the genius of Chatham was capable, would in the long run have satisfied the "patriots" of 1770. The introduction of the repeal of the Revenue Act coincided with an ugly incident at Boston. The two regiments sent to support the Commissioners of Customs had been quartered within the town. They behaved with great self-restraint and good discipline, but their presence was resented as a symbol of British authority and an infringement of the new doctrine that no regular troops should be kept in a colony and no fortification built there without its consent. In January there had been a clash between insulting patriots and irritated soldiers in New York. In Boston the populace had grown more 1 Parl. Hist. XVI, 854; Mass. State Papers, 161. and more intractable, and rumours of an attack to be made by the troops were maliciously circulated. On 5 March a crowd gathered threateningly about a solitary sentinel in front of the Custom House and began to insult him. He called for aid, and the guard of six men and a corporal under Captain Preston came to his rescue. The crowd refused to disperse, but shouted abuse at the "lobsters". Snowballs were thrown. A soldier was knocked down. With or without orders, the guard fired and four men were killed. Hutchinson, who had succeeded Bernard as Governor of Massachusetts, agreed to withdraw the troops from Boston to Fort William. The soldiers concerned were tried for their lives. They were bravely defended by John Adams and acquitted, to the lasting honour of all concerned. But the "horrid massacre at Boston", as it was excitedly described, was seized upon by orators throughout the country, grossly exaggerated and assiduously used to influence the masses. Then and long afterwards it was represented as an unprovoked and murderous assault by brutal soldiers upon innocent and peaceful citizens, and as an example of the bloody tyranny typical of British rule. Its anniversary was celebrated in the chief towns of America with signs of mourning for the "martyred" citizens and floods of revolutionary rhetoric. So great was the impression produced, that John Adams was to some extent justified in describing the incident as "laying the foundation of American Independence The conciliatory policy of the British Government had, however, temporarily deprived the extremists of any other rousing cry. It also widened the breach between them and the moderate patriots, and those who, faced by the conflicting calls of loyalty to the new country and the old, chose that which bound them to the King and Empire. Loyalists no longer saw any reason against the re-establishment of harmony. But since many held that, so long as the tea tax was maintained, the menace to their liberties was as dangerous as ever, the non-importation Associations decided to admit all British goods except tea and any article on which import duties might be imposed. Those who had been thriving on a smuggling trade in Dutch tea were particularly insistent upon this exception. Moderate patriots, like Franklin, Cushing and Dickinson, were now content to wait until American independence should be peacefully brought about by "our natural increase in wealth and population".2 But the extreme Radicals, of whom Samuel Adams was the determined and unrelenting leader, inspired by intense hatred alike of monarchy and Church, had no wish that the conciliatory policy of Great Britain should succeed. They saw in it merely a device to lull the people into acquiescence in dependency. They believed that 1 See e.g. Bancroft, G., Hist. of U.S., and Kidder, F., Evidence on the Boston Massacre. THE GASPÉE AFFAIR 671 England would never grant them absolute independence unless compelled. They believed that now was the time to fight for it, before the ardour of the people cooled, whilst their sense of grievance was still acute and bad trade still rendered them restless, and whilst England was still weak from the French war and threatened by foreign enemies. "It is now or never" wrote Joseph Hawley. The irritant of the Acts of Trade helped them to keep alive the smouldering spirit of discontent. When, in 1771, the Governor of Massachusetts refused his consent to an act by which the salaries of the Commissioners of Customs were to be taxed, the Assembly remonstrated in these words: "We know of no Commissioner of H.M. Customs nor of any revenue H.M. has a right to establish in North America: we know and we feel a tribute levied and extorted from those who, if they have property, have a right to the absolute disposal of it...". Here was the denial absolute of the right of the Crown to levy duties on trade. The Government, on the other hand, had never faltered in its conviction that somehow or other a civil list must be established, by which the salaries of governors and judges should be withdrawn from the control of the Assemblies. Since parliamentary legislation and taxation for that purpose had failed, it now resorted to the device of an executive order of the Crown, simply directing that such salaries should be paid by warrants drawn upon the revenue collected by the Commissioners of Customs. This was denounced as an outrageous usurpation by the Crown. The Boston Gazette declared (2 November 1772), that unless the liberties of the Colonists were immediately restored, they would form an independent Commonwealth. To stimulate opposition, Samuel Adams and Joseph Warren established a system of Committees of Correspondence in every town in Massachusetts, with a central committee at Boston.1 This system was presently adopted by the other colonies, and soon became, in John Adams's phrase, a very efficient "political engine" for the dissemination of propaganda, the suppression of Loyalists, and the organisation of resistance at the opportune moment. It was not long before the enforcement of the Acts of Trade brought about another serious collision. Rhode Island, enjoying, as we have seen, practically independent government, had long been a centre of illicit trade, and its rum distilleries had flourished accordingly. Attempts to repress smuggling were now answered by the destruction of revenue cutters2 and by serving writs on naval officers for seizures of smuggling vessels which the Newport Admiralty Court refused to condemn. On 9 June 1772, H.M.S. Gaspée, whilst in pursuit of a suspected ship, ran aground off Providence. A party of Rhode Islanders assembled publicly and during the night boarded the Gaspée and set her on fire. Captain Duddingston was wounded. He and his men were taken 1 Hutchinson, Hist. Mass. III, 295–345. R.I. Col. Recs. vi and vii. |