The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5)
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Though all the colonies rejoiced at the repeal of the stamp act, the
same temper did not prevail in all of them. In the commercial cities
of the north, the regulations of trade were nearly as odious as the
stamp act itself. Political parties too had been formed, and had
assumed a bitterness in some of the colonies, entirely unknown in
others. These dispositions were not long concealed. The first measures
of Massachusetts and of New York demonstrated that, in them, the
reconciliation with the mother country was not cordial.
The letter of secretary Conway, transmitting the repeal of the act
imposing a duty on stamps, enclosed also a resolution of parliament
declaring that those persons who had suffered injuries in consequence
of their assisting to execute that act, ought to be compensated by the
colony in which such injuries were sustained. This was chiefly in
Massachusetts. The resolution of parliament was laid before the
general court of that province, by governor Bernard, in a speech
rather in the spirit of the late, than the present
administration;--rather calculated to irritate than assuage the angry
passions that had been excited. The house of representatives resented
his manner of addressing them; and appeared more disposed to inquire
into the riots, and to compel those concerned in them to make
indemnities, than to compensate the sufferers out of the public purse.
But, after a second session, and some intimation that parliament would
enforce its requisition, an act of pardon to the offenders, and of
indemnity to the sufferers, was passed; but was rejected by the King,
because the colonial assembly had no power, by their charter, to pass
an act of general pardon, but at the instance of the crown.[189]
[Footnote 189: Minot.]
In New York, where general Gage was expected with a considerable body
of troops, a message was transmitted by the governor to the
legislature, desiring their compliance with an act of parliament
called "the mutiny act," which required that the colony in which any
of his majesty's forces might be stationed, should provide barracks
for them, and necessaries in their quarters. The legislature postponed
the consideration of this message until the troops were actually
arrived; and then, after a second message from the governor,
reluctantly and partially complied with the requisitions of the act.
At a subsequent session, the governor brought the subject again before
the assembly, who determined that the act of parliament could be
construed only to require that provision should be made for troops on
a march, and not while permanently stationed in the country.[190] The
reason assigned for not furnishing the accommodations required by the
governor, implies the opinion that the act of parliament was
rightfully obligatory; and yet the requisitions of the mutiny act were
unquestionably a tax; and no essential distinction is perceived
between the power of parliament to levy a tax by its own authority,
and to levy it through the medium of the colonial legislatures; they
having no right to refuse obedience to the act. It is remarkable that
such inaccurate ideas should still have prevailed, concerning the
controlling power of parliament over the colonies.
[Footnote 190: Minot. Prior documents. Belsham.]
In England it was thought to manifest a very forbearing spirit, that
this instance of disobedience was punished with no positive penalties;
and that the ministers contented themselves with a law prohibiting the
legislature of the province from passing any act, until it should
comply, in every respect, with the requisitions of parliament. The
persevering temper of Massachusetts not having found its way to New
York, this measure produced the desired effect.
Two companies of artillery, driven into the port of Boston by stress
of weather, applied to the governor for supplies. He laid the
application before his council, who advised that, "in pursuance of the
act of parliament" the supplies required should be furnished. They
were furnished, and the money to procure them was drawn from the
treasury by the authority of the executive.
{1767}
On the meeting of the legislature, the house of representatives
expressed in pointed terms their disapprobation of the conduct of the
governor. Particular umbrage was given by the expression "_in
pursuance of an act of parliament_." "After the repeal of the stamp
act, they were surprised to find that this act, equally odious and
unconstitutional, should remain in force. They lamented the entry of
this reason for the advice of council the more, as it was an
unwarrantable and unconstitutional step which totally disabled them
from testifying the same cheerfulness they had always shown in
granting to his majesty, of their free accord, such aids as his
service has from time to time required."[191] Copies of these messages
were transmitted by governor Bernard to the minister, accompanied by
letters not calculated to diminish the unpleasantness of the
communication.
[Footnote 191: Minot.]
The idea of raising revenue in America, was so highly favoured in
England, especially by the landed interest, that not even the
influence of administration could have obtained a repeal of the stamp
act, on the naked principle of right. Few were hardy enough to
question the supremacy of parliament; and the act receding from the
practical assertion of the power to tax the colonists, deeply wounded
the pride of the King, and of the nation.
The temper discovered in some of the colonies was ill calculated to
assuage the wound, which this measure had inflicted, on the haughty
spirit of the country; and is supposed to have contributed to the
revival of a system, which had been reluctantly abandoned.
Charles Townshend, chancellor of the exchequer, said boastingly in the
house of commons, "that he knew how to draw a revenue from the
colonies without giving them offence."[192] Mr. Grenville eagerly
caught at the declaration, and urged this minister to pledge himself
to bring forward the measure, at which he had hinted. During the
sickness and absence of lord Chatham, the cabinet had decided on
introducing a bill for imposing certain duties on tea, glass, paper,
and painter's colours, imported into the colonies from Great Britain;
and appropriating the money in the first instance, to the salaries of
the officers of government. This bill was brought into parliament, and
passed almost without opposition.
[Footnote 192: Belsham.]
The friends of America, in England, had distinguished between internal
and external taxation; and the same distinction had been made in the
colonies. But the discussions originating in the stamp act, while they
diffused among the colonists a knowledge of their political rights,
had inspired also more accurate ideas respecting them.
These duties were plainly intended, not to regulate commerce, but to
raise revenue, which would be as certainly collected from the
colonists, as the duties on stamps could have been. The principle of
the two measures was the same. Many of the Americans were too
intelligent to be misguided by the distinction between internal and
external taxation, or by the precedents quoted in support of the
right, for which parliament contended. This measure was considered as
establishing a precedent of taxation for the mere purpose of revenue,
which might afterwards be extended at the discretion of parliament;
and was spoken of as the _entering wedge_, designed to make way for
impositions too heavy to be borne. The appropriation of the money did
not lessen the odium of the tax. The colonists considered the
dependence of the officers of government, on the colonial legislature,
for their salaries, as the best security for their attending to the
interests, and cultivating the affections of the provinces.[193] Yet
the opinion that this act was unconstitutional, was not adopted so
immediately, or so generally, as in the case of the stamp act. Many
able political essays appeared in the papers, demonstrating that it
violated the principles of the English constitution and of English
liberty, before the conviction became general, that the same principle
which had before been successfully opposed, was again approaching in a
different form.
[Footnote 193: Prior documents.]
{1768}
The general court of Massachusetts, perceiving plainly that the claim
to tax America was revived, and being determined to oppose it,
addressed an elaborate letter to Dennis de Berdt, agent for the house
of representatives, detailing at great length, and with much weight of
argument, all the objections to the late acts of parliament. Letters
were also addressed to the earl of Shelburne and general Conway,
secretaries of state, to the marquis of Rockingham, lord Camden, the
earl of Chatham, and the lords commissioners of the treasury. These
letters, while they breathe a spirit of ardent attachment to the
British constitution, and to the British nation, manifest a perfect
conviction that their complaints were just.
Conclusive as the arguments they contained might have appeared to
Englishmen, if urged by themselves in support of their own rights,
they had not much weight, when used to disprove the existence of their
authority over others. The deep and solemn tone of conviction,
however, conveyed in all these letters, ought to have produced a
certainty that the principles assumed in them had made a strong
impression, and would not be lightly abandoned. It ought to have been
foreseen that with such a people, so determined, the conflict must be
stern and hazardous; and, it was well worth the estimate, whether the
object would compensate the means used to obtain it.
[Sidenote: Petition to the King.]
The assembly also voted a petition to the King, replete with
professions of loyalty and attachment; but stating, in explicit terms,
their sense of the acts against which they petitioned.
A proposition was next made for an address to the other colonies on
the power claimed by parliament, which, after considerable debate, was
carried in the affirmative; and a circular letter to the assemblies of
the several provinces, setting forth the proceedings of the house of
representatives, was prepared and adopted.[194]
[Footnote 194: See note V, at the end of the volume.]
To rescue their measures from the imputation of systematic opposition
to the British government, the house, without acknowledging the
obligation of the mutiny act, complied with a requisition of the
governor to make a farther provision for one of the King's garrisons
within the province. The governor, soon afterwards, prorogued the
general court with an angry speech, not calculated to diminish the
resentments of the house directed against himself; resentments
occasioned as much by the haughtiness of his manners, and a persuasion
that he had misrepresented their conduct and opinions to ministers, as
by the unpopular course his station required him to pursue.[195]
[Footnote 195: Minot.]
The circular letter of the house of representatives of Massachusetts
was well received in the other colonies. They approved the measures
which had been taken, and readily united in them. They, too,
petitioned the King against the obnoxious acts of parliament, and
instructed their several agents to use all proper means to obtain
their repeal. Virginia transmitted a statement of her proceedings[196]
to her sister colonies; and her house of Burgesses, in a letter to
Massachusetts, communicating the representation made to parliament,
say, "that they do not affect an independency of their parent kingdom,
the prosperity of which they are bound, to the utmost of their
abilities, to promote; but cheerfully acquiesce in the authority of
parliament to make laws for the preserving a necessary dependence, and
for regulating the trade of the colonies; yet they cannot conceive,
and humbly insist, it is not essential to support a proper relation
between the mother country, and colonies transplanted from her, that
she should have a right to raise money from them without their
consent, and presume they do not aspire to more than the right of
British subjects, when they assert that no power on earth has a right
to impose taxes on the people, or take the smallest portion of their
property without their consent given by their representatives in
parliament."[197]
[Footnote 196: Prior documents.]
[Footnote 197: In this letter the house of Burgesses express
their opinion of the mutiny act in the following terms: "The
act suspending the legislative power of New York, they
consider as still more alarming to the colonies, though it
has that single province in view. If parliament can compel
them to furnish a single article to the troops sent over,
they may, by the same rule, oblige them to furnish clothes,
arms, and every other necessary, even the pay of the
officers and soldiers; a doctrine replete with every
mischief, and utterly subversive of all that's dear and
valuable; for what advantage can the people of the colonies
derive from choosing their own representatives, if those
representatives, when chosen, be not permitted to exercise
their own judgments, be under a necessity (on pain of being
deprived of their legislative authority) of enforcing the
mandates of a British parliament."]
On the first intimation of the measures taken by Massachusetts, the
earl of Hillsborough, who had been appointed to the newly created
office of secretary of state for the department of the colonies,
addressed a circular to the several governors, to be laid before the
respective assemblies, in which he treated the circular letter of
Massachusetts, as being of the most dangerous tendency, calculated to
inflame the minds of his majesty's good subjects in the colonies, to
promote an unwarrantable combination, to excite an open opposition to
the authority of parliament, and to subvert the true principles of the
constitution.[198]
[Footnote 198: Prior documents.]
His first object was to prevail on the several assemblies openly to
censure the conduct of Massachusetts; his next, to prevent their
approving the proceedings of that colony. The letter, far from
producing the desired effect, rather served to strengthen the
determination of the colonies to unite in their endeavours to obtain a
repeal of laws universally detested. On manifesting this disposition,
the assemblies were generally dissolved;--probably in pursuance of
instructions from the crown.
When the general court of Massachusetts was again convened, governor
Bernard laid before the house of representatives, an extract of a
letter from the earl of Hillsborough, in which, after animadverting in
harsh terms on the circular letter to the colonies, he declared it to
be "the King's pleasure" that the governor "should require the house
of representatives, in his majesty's name, to rescind the resolution
on which the circular letter was founded, and to declare their
disapprobation of, and dissent from, that rash and hasty proceeding."
This message excited considerable agitation; but the house, without
coming to any resolution on it, requested the governor to lay before
them the whole letter of the earl of Hillsborough, and also copies of
such letters as had been written by his excellency to that nobleman,
on the subject to which the message referred.
The copies were haughtily refused; but the residue of the letter from
the earl of Hillsborough was laid before them. That minister said,
"if, notwithstanding the apprehensions which may justly be entertained
of the ill consequence of a continuance of this factious spirit, which
seems to have influenced the resolutions of the assembly at the
conclusion of the last session, the new assembly should refuse to
comply with his majesty's reasonable expectation, it is the King's
pleasure that you immediately dissolve them."
This subject being taken into consideration, a letter to the earl was
reported, and agreed to by a majority of ninety-three to thirteen, in
which they defended their circular letter in strong and manly, but
respectful terms; and concluded with saying, "the house humbly rely on
the royal clemency, that to petition his majesty will not be deemed by
him to be inconsistent with a respect to the British constitution as
settled at the revolution by William III., and that to acquaint their
fellow subjects involved in the same distress, of their having so
done, in full hopes of success, even if they had invited the union of
all America in one joint supplication, would not be discountenanced by
their gracious sovereign, as a measure of an inflammatory nature. That
when your lordship shall in justice lay a true state of these matters
before his majesty, he will no longer consider them as tending to
create unwarrantable combinations, or excite an unjustifiable
opposition to the constitutional authority of parliament; that he will
then truly discern who are of that desperate faction which is
continually disturbing the public tranquillity; and that, while his
arm is extended for the protection of his distressed and injured
subjects, he will frown upon all those who, to gratify their own
passions, have dared to attempt to deceive him."[199]
[Footnote 199: Prior documents.]
[Sidenote: Legislature of Massachusetts dissolved.]
A motion to rescind the resolution on which their circular letter was
founded, passed in the negative, by a majority of ninety-two to
seventeen; and a letter to the governor was prepared, stating their
motives for refusing to comply with the requisition of the earl of
Hillsborough. Immediately after receiving it, he prorogued the
assembly, with an angry speech; and, the next day, dissolved it by
proclamation.[200]
[Footnote 200: Minot.]
While the opposition was thus conducted by the legislature with
temperate firmness, and legitimate means, the general irritation
occasionally displayed itself at Boston, in acts of violence denoting
evidently that the people of that place, were prepared for much
stronger measures than their representatives had adopted.
[Sidenote: Seizure of the sloop Liberty.]
The seizure of the sloop Liberty belonging to Mr. Hancock, by the
collector of the customs, occasioned the assemblage of a tumultuous
mob, who beat the officers and their assistants, took possession of a
boat belonging to the collector, burnt it in triumph, and patrolled
the streets for a considerable time. The revenue officers fled for
refuge, first to the Romney man of war, and afterwards to Castle
William. After the lapse of some time, the governor moved the council
to take into consideration some measure for restoring vigour and
firmness to government. The council replied "that the disorders which
happened were occasioned by the violent and unprecedented manner in
which the sloop Liberty had been seized by the officers of the
customs." And the inhabitants of Boston, in a justificatory memorial,
supported by affidavits, insisted that the late tumults were
occasioned, principally, by the haughty conduct of the commissioners
and their subordinate officers, and by the illegal and offensive
conduct of the Romney man of war.[201]
[Footnote 201: Minot. Prior documents.]
The legislature however did not think proper to countenance this act
of violence. A committee of both houses, appointed to inquire into the
state of the province, made a report which, after reprobating the
circumstances attending the seizure, to which the mob was ascribed,
declared their abhorrence of a procedure which they pronounced
criminal; desired the governor to direct a prosecution against all
persons concerned in the riot; and to issue a proclamation offering a
reward to any person who should make discoveries by which the rioters
or their abettors should be brought to condign punishment.
This report, however, seems to have been intended, rather to save
appearances, than to produce any real effect. It was perfectly
understood that no person would dare to inform; or even to appear, as
a witness, in any prosecution which might be instituted. Suits were
afterwards brought against Mr. Hancock and others, owners of the
vessel and cargo; but they were never prosecuted to a final
decision.[202]
[Footnote 202: Minot.]
This riot accelerated a measure, which tended, in no inconsiderable
degree, to irritate still farther the angry dispositions already
prevalent in Boston.
The governor had pressed on administration the necessity of stationing
a military force in the province, for the protection of the officers
employed in collecting the revenue, and of the magistrates, in
preserving the public peace. In consequence of these representations,
orders had already been given to general Gage to detach, at least, one
regiment on this service, and to select for the command of it, an
officer on whose prudence, resolution, and integrity, he could rely.
The transactions respecting the sloop Liberty rendered any attempt to
produce a countermand of these orders entirely abortive; and, probably
occasioned two regiments, instead of one, to be detached by general
Gage.[203]
[Footnote 203: Minot.]
It seems to have been supposed that a dissolution of the assembly of
Massachusetts would dissolve also the opposition to the measures of
administration; and that the people, having no longer constitutional
leaders, being no longer excited and conducted by their
representatives, would gradually become quiet, and return to, what was
termed, their duty to government. But the opinions expressed by the
house of representatives were the opinions of the great body of the
people, and had been adopted with too much ardour to be readily
suppressed. The most active and energetic part of society had embraced
them with enthusiasm; and the dissolution of the assembly, by creating
a necessity for devising other expedients, hastened the mode of
conducting opposition at least as efficacious, and afterwards
universally adopted.
At a town meeting of the inhabitants of Boston, a committee was
deputed for the purpose of praying the governor to convene another
general assembly. He replied that no other could be convened until his
majesty's commands to that effect should be received. This answer
being reported, the meeting resolved "that to levy money within that
province by any other authority than that of the general court, was a
violation of the royal charter, and of the undoubted natural rights of
British subjects.
"That the freeholders, and other inhabitants of the town of Boston
would, at the peril of their lives and fortunes, take all legal and
constitutional measures to defend all and singular the rights,
liberties, privileges, and immunities, granted in their royal charter.
"That as there was an apprehension in the minds of many of an
approaching war with France, those inhabitants who were not provided
with arms should be requested duly to observe the laws of the
province, which required that every freeholder should furnish himself
with a complete stand."
But the important resolution was "that, as the governor did not think
proper to call a general court for the redress of their grievances,
the town would then make choice of a suitable number of persons to act
for them as a committee in a convention, to be held at Faneuil Hall in
Boston, with such as might be sent to join them from the several towns
in the province."
These votes were communicated by the select men, in a circular letter
to the other towns in the province, which were requested to concur,
and to elect committee men, to meet those of Boston in convention.
[Sidenote: Convention assembles in Boston.]
The measure was generally adopted; and a convention met, which was
regarded with all the respect that could have been paid to a
legitimate assembly.[204]
[Footnote 204: Minot.]
[Sidenote: Its moderation.]
The country in general, though united on the great constitutional
question of taxation, was probably not so highly exasperated as the
people of Boston; and the convention acted with unexpected moderation.
They disclaimed all pretensions to any other character than that of
mere individuals, assembled by deputation from the towns, to consult
and advise on such measures as might tend to promote the peace of his
majesty's subjects in the province, but without power to pass any acts
possessing a coercive quality.
They petitioned the governor to assemble a general court, and
addressed a letter to the agent of the province in England, stating
the character in which they met, and the motives which brought them
together. After expressing their opinions with temper and firmness on
the subjects of general complaint, and recommending patience and order
to the people, they dissolved themselves, and returned to their
respective homes.[205]
[Footnote 205: Minot.]
[Sidenote: Two regiments arrive.]
The day before the convention rose, the two regiments which had been
detached by general Gage arrived, under convoy, in Nantasket road. The
council had rejected an application of the governor to provide
quarters for them, because the barracks in the castle were sufficient
for their accommodation; and, by act of parliament, the British troops
were not to be quartered elsewhere until those barracks were full.
General Gage had directed one regiment to be stationed in Boston; but,
on hearing a report that the people were in a state of open revolt, he
gave additional orders, which left the whole subject to the discretion
of the commanding officer; who was induced, by some rash threats of
opposing the disembarkation of the troops to land both regiments in
that place. The ships took a station which commanded the whole town,
and lay with their broad sides towards it, ready to fire, should any
resistance be attempted. The troops landed under cover of their
cannon, and marched into the common with loaded muskets and fixed
bayonets;[206] a display of military pomp, which was believed by the
inhabitants to have been intended for the purpose either of
intimidation, or of irritation.