The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5)
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[Footnote 177: History of South Carolina and Georgia.]
It was not in America only that the vigour presiding in the councils
of Britain shed lustre on the British arms. Splendid conquests were
also made in Asia and Africa; and in Europe, her aids of men and money
enabled the greatest monarch of his age to surmount difficulties which
only Frederick and Mr. Pitt could have dared to encounter.
{1762}
At length, Spain, alarmed at the increase of British power in America,
and apprehensive for the safety of her own dominions, determined to
take part against Great Britain; and, early in the year 1762, the two
crowns declared war against each other. It was prosecuted, on the part
of Great Britain, with signal success; and, in the course of the year,
Martinique, Granada, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, and all the Caribbee
Islands were wrested from France; and the very important city of
Havanna, which in a great degree commands the gulf of Mexico, was
taken from Spain.
This course of conquest, which no force in possession of France and
Spain seemed capable of checking, while any of their distant
possessions remained to be subdued, was arrested by preliminary
articles of peace signed at Paris.
By this treaty, his Christian Majesty ceded to Britain, all the
conquests made by that power on the continent of North America,
together with the river and port of Mobile; and all the territory to
which France was entitled on the left bank of the Mississippi,
reserving only the island of New Orleans. And it was agreed that, for
the future, the confines between the dominions of the two crowns, in
that quarter of the world, should be irrevocably fixed by a line drawn
along the middle of the Mississippi, from its source as far as the
river Iberville, and thence, by a line drawn along the middle of that
river, and of the lakes Maurepas and Pont Chartrain.
The Havanna was exchanged with Spain for the Floridas. By establishing
these great natural boundaries to the British empire in North America,
all causes of future contest respecting that continent, with any
potentate of Europe, were supposed to be removed.
CHAPTER XIII.
Opinions on the supremacy of parliament, and its right to
tax the colonies.... The stamp act.... Congress at New
York.... Violence in the towns.... Change of
administration.... Stamp act repealed.... Opposition to the
mutiny act.... Act imposing duties on tea, &c. resisted in
America.... Letters from the assembly of Massachusetts to
members of the administration.... Petition to the King....
Circular letter to the colonial assemblies.... Letter from
the earl of Hillsborough.... Assembly of Massachusetts
dissolved.... Seizure of the Sloop Liberty.... Convention at
Fanueil Hall.... Moderation of its proceedings.... Two
British regiments arrive at Boston.... Resolutions of the
house of Burgesses of Virginia.... Assembly dissolved....
The members form an association.... General measures against
importation.... General court convened in Massachusetts....
Its proceedings.... Is prorogued.... Duties, except that on
tea, repealed.... Circular letter of the earl of
Hillsborough.... New York recedes from the non-importation
agreement in part.... Her example followed.... Riot in
Boston.... Trial and acquittal of Captain Preston.
{1763}
The attachment of the colonies to the mother country was never
stronger than at the signature of the treaty of Paris.[178] The union
of that tract of country which extends from the Atlantic to the
Mississippi, and from the gulf of Mexico to the north pole, was deemed
a certain guarantee of future peace, and an effectual security against
the return of those bloody scenes from which no condition in life
could afford an exemption.
[Footnote 178: After the expulsion of the French from
Canada, a considerable degree of ill humour was manifested
in Massachusetts with respect to the manner in which the
laws of trade were executed. A question was agitated in
court, in which the colony took a very deep interest. A
custom house officer applied for what was termed "a writ of
assistance," which was an authority to search any house for
dutiable articles suspected to be concealed in it. The right
to grant special warrants was not contested; but this grant
of a general warrant was deemed contrary to the principles
of liberty, and an engine of oppression equally useless and
vexatious, which would enable every petty officer of the
customs to gratify his resentments by harassing the most
respectable men in the province. The ill temper excited on
this occasion was shown by a reduction of the salaries of
the judges; but no diminution of attachment to the mother
country appears to have been produced by it.]
This state of things, long and anxiously wished for by British
America, had, at length, been effected by the union of British and
American arms. The soldiers of the parent state and her colonies had
co-operated in the same service, their blood had mingled in the same
plains, and the object pursued was common to both people.
While the British nation was endeared to the Americans by this
community of danger, and identity of interest, the brilliant
achievements of the war had exalted to enthusiasm their admiration of
British valour. They were proud of the land of their ancestors, and
gloried in their descent from Englishmen. But this sentiment was not
confined to the military character of the nation. While the excellence
of the English constitution was a rich theme of declamation, every
colonist believed himself entitled to its advantages; nor could he
admit that, by crossing the Atlantic, his ancestors had relinquished
the essential rights of British subjects.
The degree of authority which might rightfully be exercised by the
mother country over her colonies, had never been accurately defined.
In Britain, it had always been asserted that Parliament possessed the
power of binding them in all cases whatever. In America, at different
times, and in different provinces, different opinions had been
entertained on this subject.
In New England, originally settled by republicans, habits of
independence had nourished the theory that the colonial assemblies
possessed every legislative power not surrendered by compact; that the
Americans were subjects of the British crown, but not of the nation;
and were bound by no laws to which their representatives had not
assented. From this high ground they had been compelled reluctantly to
recede. The Judges, being generally appointed by the governors with
the advice of council, had determined that the colonies were bound by
acts of parliament which concerned them, and which were expressly
extended to them; and the general court of Massachusetts had, on a
late occasion, explicitly recognised the same principle. This had
probably become the opinion of many of the best informed men of the
province; but the doctrine seems still to have been extensively
maintained, that acts of parliament possessed only an external
obligation; that they might regulate commerce, but not the internal
affairs of the colonies.
In the year 1692, the general court of Massachusetts passed an act,
denying the right of any other legislature to impose any tax whatever
on the colony; and also asserting those principles of national
liberty, which are found in Magna Charta. Not long afterwards, the
legislature of New York, probably with a view only to the authority
claimed by the governor, passed an act in which its own supremacy, not
only in matters of taxation, but of general legislation, is expressly
affirmed. Both these acts however were disapproved in England; and the
parliament asserted its authority, in 1696, by declaring "that all
laws, bye laws, usages, and customs, which shall be in practice in any
of the plantations, repugnant to any law made or to be made in this
kingdom relative to the said plantations, shall be void and of none
effect." And three years afterwards, an act was passed for the trial
of pirates in America, in which is to be found the following
extraordinary clause: "Be it farther declared that, if any of the
governors, or any person or persons in authority there, shall refuse
to yield obedience to this act, such refusal is hereby declared to be
a forfeiture of all and every [_sic_] the charters granted for the
government and propriety of such plantations."
The English statute book furnishes many instances in which the
legislative power of parliament over the colonies was extended to
regulations completely internal; and it is not recollected that their
authority was in any case openly controverted.
In the middle and southern provinces, no question respecting the
supremacy of parliament, in matters of general legislation, ever
existed. The authority of such acts of internal regulation as were
made for America, as well as of those for the regulation of commerce,
even by the imposition of duties, provided those duties were imposed
for the purpose of regulation, had been at all times admitted. But
these colonies, however they might acknowledge the supremacy of
parliament in other respects, denied the right of that body to tax
them internally.
Their submission to the act for establishing a general post office,
which raised a revenue on the carriage of letters, was not thought a
dereliction of this principle; because that regulation was not
considered as a tax, but as a compensation for a service rendered,
which every person might accept or decline. And all the duties on
trade were understood to be imposed, rather with a view to prevent
foreign commerce, than to raise a revenue. Perhaps the legality of
such acts was the less questioned, because they were not rigorously
executed, and their violation was sometimes designedly overlooked. A
scheme for taxing the colonies by authority of parliament had been
formed so early as the year 1739, and recommended to government by a
club of American merchants, at whose head was sir William Keith,
governor of Pennsylvania. In this scheme, it was proposed to raise a
body of regulars, to be stationed along the western frontier of the
British settlements, for the protection of the Indian traders; the
expense of which establishment was to be paid with monies arising from
a duty on stamped paper and parchment in all the colonies. This plan,
however, was not countenanced by those in power; and seems never to
have been seriously taken up by the government until the year 1754.
The attention of the minister was then turned to a plan of taxation by
authority of parliament; and it will be recollected that a system was
devised and recommended by him, as a substitute for the articles of
union proposed by the convention at Albany. The temper and opinion of
the colonists, and the impolicy of irritating them at a crisis which
required all the exertions they were capable of making, suspended this
delicate and dangerous measure; but it seems not to have been totally
abandoned. Of the right of parliament, as the supreme legislature, of
the nation, to tax as well as govern the colonies, those who guided
the councils of Britain seem not to have entertained a doubt; and the
language of men in power, on more than one occasion through the war,
indicated a disposition to put this right in practice when the
termination of hostilities should render the experiment less
dangerous. The failure of some of the colonies, especially those in
which a proprietary government was established, to furnish, in time,
the aids required of them, contributed to foster this disposition.
This opposition of opinion on a subject the most interesting to the
human heart, was about to produce a system of measures which tore
asunder all the bonds of relationship and affection that had subsisted
for ages, and planted almost inextinguishable hatred in bosoms where
the warmest friendship had long been cultivated.
{1764}
The unexampled expenses of the war required a great addition to the
regular taxes of the nation. Considerable difficulty was found in
searching out new sources of revenue, and great opposition was made to
every tax proposed. Thus embarrassed, administration directed its
attention to the continent of North America. The system which had been
laid aside was renewed; and, on the motion of Mr. Grenville, first
commissioner of the treasury, a resolution passed without much debate,
declaring that it would be proper to impose certain stamp duties in
the colonies and plantations, for the purpose of raising a revenue in
America, payable into the British exchequer. This resolution was not
carried into immediate effect, and was only declaratory of an
intention to be executed the ensuing year.[179]
[Footnote 179: Belsham.]
Other resolutions were passed at the same time, laying new duties on
the trade of the colonies, which being in the form of commercial
regulations, were not generally contested on the ground of right,
though imposed expressly for the purpose of raising revenue. Great
disgust, however, was produced by the increase of the duties, by the
new regulations which were made, and by the manner in which those
regulations were to be executed. The gainful commerce long carried on
clandestinely with the French and Spanish colonies, in the progress of
which an evasion of the duties imposed by law had been overlooked by
the government, was to be rigorously suppressed by taxes amounting to
a prohibition of fair trade; and their exact collection was to be
enforced by measures not much less offensive in themselves, than on
account of the object to be effected.[180]
[Footnote 180: Belsham. Minot.]
Completely to prevent smuggling, all the officers in the sea service,
who were on the American station, were converted into revenue
officers; and directed to take the custom house oaths. Many vexatious
seizures were made, for which no redress could be obtained but in
England. The penalties and forfeitures, too, accruing under the act,
as if the usual tribunals could not be trusted, were made recoverable
in any court of vice-admiralty in the colonies. It will be readily
conceived how odious a law, made to effect an odious object, must have
been rendered by such provisions as these.
{1765}
The resolution concerning the duties on stamps excited a great and
general ferment in America. The right of parliament to impose taxes on
the colonies for the purpose of raising a revenue, became the subject
of universal conversation, and was almost universally denied.
Petitions to the King, and memorials to both houses of parliament
against the measure, were transmitted by several of the provincial
assemblies to the board of trade in England, to be presented to his
majesty immediately; and to parliament, when that body should be
convened. The house of representatives of Massachusetts instructed
their agent to use his utmost endeavours to prevent the passage of the
stamp act, or any other act levying taxes or impositions of any kind
on the American provinces. A committee was appointed to act in the
recess of the general court, with instructions to correspond with the
legislatures of the several colonies, to communicate to them the
instructions given to the agent of Massachusetts, and to solicit their
concurrence in similar measures. These legislative proceedings were,
in many places, seconded by associations entered into by individuals,
for diminishing the use of British manufactures.[181]
[Footnote 181: Minot.]
The administration, perceiving the opposition to be encountered by
adhering to the vote of the preceding session, informed the agents of
the colonies in London that, if they would propose any other mode of
raising the sum required[182], their proposition would be accepted,
and the stamp duty laid aside. The agents replied that they were not
authorised to propose any substitute, but were ordered to oppose the
bill when it should be brought into the house, by petitions
questioning the right of parliament to tax the colonies. This reply
placed the controversy on ground which admitted of no compromise.
Determined to persevere in the system he had adopted, and believing
successful resistance to be impossible, Mr. Grenville brought into
parliament his celebrated act for imposing stamp duties in America;
and it passed both houses by great majorities, but not without
animated debate. So little weight does the human mind allow to the
most conclusive arguments, when directed against the existence of
power in ourselves, that general Conway is said to have stood
alone[183] in denying the right claimed by parliament.
[Footnote 182: 100,000_l_. sterling.]
[Footnote 183: Mr. Pitt was not in the house; and Mr.
Ingersoll, in his letter, states that Alderman Beckford
joined General Conway. Mr. Belsham, therefore, who makes
this statement, was probably mistaken.]
This act excited serious alarm throughout the colonies. It was
sincerely believed to wound vitally the constitution of the country,
and to destroy the most sacred principles of liberty. Combinations
against its execution were formed; and the utmost exertions were used
to diffuse among the people a knowledge of the pernicious consequences
which must flow from admitting that the colonists could be taxed by a
legislature in which they were not represented.
The assembly of Virginia was in session when the intelligence was
received; and, by a small majority, passed several resolutions
introduced by Mr. Henry, and seconded by Mr. Johnson,[184] one of
which asserts the exclusive right of that assembly to lay taxes and
impositions on the inhabitants of that colony.[185]
[Footnote 184: See note No. III, at the end of the volume.]
[Footnote 185: Prior documents. Virginia Gazette.]
On the passage of these resolutions, the governor dissolved the
assembly; and writs for new elections were issued. In almost every
instance, the members who had voted in favour of the resolutions were
re-elected, while those who had voted against them were generally
excluded.
The legislatures of several other colonies passed resolutions similar
to those of Virginia. The house of representatives of Massachusetts,
contemplating a still more solemn and effectual expression of the
general sentiment, recommended a congress of deputies from all the
colonial assemblies, to meet at New York the first Monday in October.
Circular letters communicating this recommendation, were addressed to
the respective assemblies wherever they were in session. New Hampshire
alone, although concurring in the general opposition, declined sending
members to the congress; and the legislatures of Virginia and North
Carolina were not in session.[186]
[Footnote 186: Minot.]
In the meantime, the press teemed with the most animating exhortations
to the people, to unite in defence of their liberty and property; and
the stamp officers were, almost universally, compelled to resign.
[Sidenote: Congress at New York.]
At the time appointed, the commissioners from the assemblies of
Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey,
Pennsylvania, the three lower counties on the Delaware, Maryland, and
South Carolina assembled at New York; and, having chosen Timothy
Ruggles, of Massachusetts, their chairman, proceeded on the important
objects for which they had convened. The first measure of congress was
a declaration[187] of the rights and grievances of the colonists. This
paper asserts their title to all the rights and liberties of natural
born subjects within the kingdom of Great Britain; among the most
essential of which are, the exclusive power to tax themselves, and the
trial by jury.
[Footnote 187: See note No. IV, at the end of the volume.]
The act granting certain stamp and other duties in the British
colonies was placed first on the list of grievances. Its direct
tendency they said, was, by taxing the colonists without their
consent, and by extending the jurisdiction of courts of admiralty, to
subvert their rights and liberties. They also addressed a petition to
the King, and a memorial to each house of parliament.
These papers were drawn with temperate firmness. They express,
unequivocally, the attachment of the colonists to the mother country;
and assert the rights they claim in the earnest language of
conviction.
Having, in addition to these measures, recommended to the several
colonies to appoint special agents, with instructions to unite their
utmost endeavours in soliciting a redress of grievances; and directed
their clerk to make out a copy of their proceedings for each colony,
congress adjourned.[188]
[Footnote 188: Minot. Prior documents.]
To interest the people of England against the measures of
administration, associations were formed for the encouragement of
domestic manufactures, and against the use of those imported from
Great Britain. To increase their quantity of wool, the colonists
determined to kill no lambs, and to use all the means in their power
to multiply their flocks of sheep. To avoid the use of stamps,
proceedings in the courts of justice were suspended; and a settlement
of all controversies by arbitration was strongly recommended.
[Sidenote: Violence in the large towns.]
While this determined and systematic opposition was made by the
thinking part of the community, some riotous and disorderly meetings
took place, especially in the large towns, which threatened serious
consequences. Many houses were destroyed, much property injured, and
several persons, highly respectable in character and station, were
grossly abused.
While these transactions were passing in America, causes entirely
unconnected with the affairs of the colonies, produced a total
revolution in the British cabinet. The Grenville party was succeeded
by an administration unfriendly to the plan for taxing the colonies
without their consent. General Conway, one of the principal
secretaries of state, addressed a circular letter to the several
governors, in which he censured, in mild terms, the violent measures
that had been adopted, and recommended to them, while they maintained
the dignity of the crown and of parliament, to observe a temperate and
conciliatory conduct towards the colonists, and to endeavour, by
persuasive means, to restore the public peace.
{1766}
Parliament was opened by a speech from the throne, in which his
majesty declared his firm confidence in their wisdom and zeal, which
would, he doubted not, guide them to such sound and prudent
resolutions, as might tend at once to preserve the constitutional
rights of the British legislature over the colonies, and to restore to
them that harmony and tranquillity which had lately been interrupted
by disorders of the most dangerous nature.
In the course of the debate in the house of commons, on the motion for
the address, Mr. Pitt, in explicit terms, condemned the act for
collecting stamp duties in America; and avowed the opinion that
parliament had no right to tax the colonies. He asserted, at the same
time, "the authority of that kingdom to be sovereign and supreme in
every circumstance of government and legislation whatever." He
maintained the difficult proposition "that taxation is no part of the
governing, or legislative power; but that taxes are a voluntary gift
and grant of the commons alone;" and concluded an eloquent speech, by
recommending to the house, "that the stamp act be repealed,
_absolutely_, _totally_, and _immediately_."
The opinions expressed by Mr. Pitt were warmly opposed by the late
ministers. Mr. Grenville said, "that the disturbances in America were
grown to tumults and riots; he doubted, they bordered on open
rebellion; and, if the doctrine he had heard that day should be
confirmed, he feared they would lose that name to take that of
revolution. The government ever them being dissolved, a revolution
would take place in America." He contended that taxation was a part of
the sovereign power;--one branch of legislation; and had been
exercised over those who were not represented. He could not comprehend
the distinction between external and internal taxation; and insisted
that the colonies ought to bear a part of the burdens occasioned by a
war for their defence.
[Sidenote: Stamp act repealed.]
The existing administration, however, concurred in sentiment with Mr.
Pitt, and the act was repealed; but its repeal was accompanied with a
declaratory act, asserting the right of Great Britain to bind the
colonies in all cases whatsoever.
The intelligence of this event was received in America with general
manifestations of joy. The assertion of the abstract principle of
right gave many but little concern, because they considered it merely
as a salve for the wounded pride of the nation, and believed
confidently that no future attempt would be made to reduce it to
practice. The highest honours were conferred on those parliamentary
leaders who had exerted themselves to obtain a repeal of the act; and,
in Virginia, the house of Burgesses voted a statue to his majesty, as
an acknowledgment of their high sense of his attention to the rights
and petitions of his people.