Chapter I: The Revolution Impending (2)

The Rockingham ministry began July 13, 1765, and ended August 2, 1766. The colonists themselves could hardly have chosen one more to their mind. It was weak and vacillating. It repealed the Stamp Act, and passed the Declaratory Bill. To Dowdswell, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Massachusetts House voted their thanks. Then came the Chatham-Grafton ministry, which was in power until December 31, 1769. This was nominally Pitt's ministry; but his elevation to the peerage impaired his influence with the people, and after nine months he retired from public affairs by reason of ill health. Men of such opposite views and character as Shelburne, Hillsborough, Charles Townshend, and Lord North were of this ministry.

Lord North was premier from February 10, 1770, to September 6, 1780. Long after he wished to retire he continued to hold power at the personal solicitation, and even by the command, of the king. He was able, faithful, and patriotic; but his heart was not in the work of subduing the colonies, nor could he pilot the ship of state through dangerous seas.

Such were the ministers at one of the most critical periods in English history. No first-class man is to be found among them save Pitt, and his real attitude was that of opposition. He raised the storm, but when his hand ought to have been on the helm he was prostrate in the cabin.

Nor were the governors of Massachusetts, during a period when affairs needed a firm hand, although worthy gentlemen, altogether such as a far-seeing ministry would have chosen to carry out the new policy. Shirley was the only governor of Massachusetts who possessed the favor of the people; and yet he believed in the king's prerogative, and valued himself highly as its representative. He endeavored to suppress illicit trade and to enforce the navigation laws; and from his conferences with Franklin, it is certain that he contemplated some radical changes in the constitutions of the colonies.[43] But he got more money from the people for public uses than any previous governor, and even persuaded them to pass a provincial stamp act.[44] The secret of Shirley's influence may have been that he was less eager to secure his own salary than some of his predecessors had shown themselves to be, and that he had displayed unequalled activity in conducting the French war, which engaged the attention of the people. Pownall, who succeeded Shirley, belonged to the popular party. He gave no particular attention to the navigation laws, and was on the opposite side from Hutchinson, who was lieutenant-governor during the latter part of his term, which closed in 1760.

After Pownall came Bernard, and with him the beginning of the Revolution. Bernard was not without ability, accomplishments, and good intentions; but he was a Tory. More firmly even than Shirley, he believed in the royal prerogatives, and in some modification of the provincial charters to bring their action into harmony with the imperial system. During his administration, and in some cases at his suggestion, the ministry entered upon that series of measures which lost the colonies to Great Britain: the enforcement of the navigation laws; the use of writs of assistance; Grenville's revenue acts in 1764; the Stamp Act of 1765; the Townshend duties of 1767; and the arrival of military forces in 1768.

The purposes contemplated by these successive administrations were not unreasonable, nor were the measures by which they sought to accomplish them unwise in themselves. The general policy was the same as that afterwards pursued by the colonies when they had become a great empire,—homogeneity, equal contributions to expenses, a preference for their own shipping, and protection to their own industries.

The difficulty arose from a misconception of the relations of the colonies to the mother country. They were not a part of the realm, and could neither equally share its privileges nor justly bear its burdens. The attempt to bring them within imperial legislation failed, and could only fail. They were colonies; and the chief benefit the parent state could legitimately derive from them was the trade which would flow naturally to Great Britain by reason of the political connection, and would increase with the prosperity of the colonies.

Early in 1763 the Bute ministry, of which George Grenville and Charles Townshend were members, entered upon the new policy. To enforce the navigation laws, armed cutters cruised about the British coast and along the American shores; their officers, for the first time, and much to their disgust, being required to act as revenue officers. To give unity to their efforts, an admiral was stationed on the coast. To adjudicate upon seizures of contraband goods, and other offences against the revenue, a vice-admiralty court, with enlarged jurisdiction, and sitting without juries, was set up.[45] Royal governors, hitherto chiefly occupied with domestic administration, were now obliged to watch the commerce of an empire. It was seen long before this time that the successful administration of the new system would require some modification of the provincial charters; but the difficulties were so serious that the matter was deferred.

Such was the new order of things. The student who reflects upon the complete and radical change effected or threatened by these new measures, so much at variance with the habits and customary rights of the colonists, breaking up without notice not only illicit but legitimate trade, and sweeping away their commercial prosperity, is no longer at loss to account for the outburst of wrath which followed the Stamp Act, a year later.[46] To avert these hostile proceedings, the colonists memorialized the king and Parliament. They employed resident agents to act in their behalf. They availed themselves of party divisions and animosities in England. They alarmed British merchants by non-importation and self-denying agreements. When these measures seemed likely to prove ineffectual, they aroused public sentiment through the press, by public gatherings and legislative resolutions, by committees of correspondence between towns and colonies, and finally by continental congresses. They did not scruple to avail themselves of popular violence, nor, in the last extremity, of armed resistance to British authority.

So far as trade and commerce were concerned, it was a struggle between British and colonial merchants. The colonial merchants desired freedom of commerce; the British merchant desired its monopoly. But this does not state the case precisely; for the colonial merchants were desirous of retaining what they possessed rather than of acquiring something new. By the navigation laws the British merchant had a legal monopoly of certain specified trades; but by evading these laws, the colonial merchants had gained a large part of this trade for themselves. One party, standing on legal rights, wished to recover this lost trade; the other party, basing their claim on natural equity and long enjoyment, wished to retain it. This was an old question, a hundred years old; but it had acquired new interest since the government, with the aid of writs of assistance, had undertaken to enforce the navigation laws and acts of trade. Such was the first issue between the parties. The second was this, and it was new: As has been said, Great Britain had never undertaken to raise a revenue from the colonies, though she had often contemplated doing so, and especially during the French war just closed. At the close of the war it was estimated that £300,000 would be required to man the forts about to be vacated by the French, and to maintain twenty regiments to hold the Indians in check, who were still under French influence and might become dangerous, as happened in Pontiac's time; and to give efficiency to civil administration by granting to governors, judges, and some other officers fixed and regular salaries, instead of having them depend on irregular and fluctuating grants of colonial assemblies. One third of these expenses—£100,000—the ministry proposed to raise by laying duties on importations, reserving a direct tax by stamps for fuller consideration.

The colonists met this proposition by denying both the necessity and the right of raising a revenue,—at first distinguishing between external and internal taxes, and finally objecting to all taxes raised by a Parliament in which they neither were nor practically could be represented. These issues were complicated with several others of long standing, but which may be left out of the account here.

The popular idea has been that the Revolution began with the Stamp Act. But it seems strange that prosperous colonists, in whose behalf the British people had expended £60,000,000 sterling, should refuse to pay £100,000, one third of the sum deemed necessary for their future defence, and that months before they were called upon to raise the first penny they should fall into a paroxysm of rage, from one end of the continent to the other, and commit disgraceful acts of violence upon property and against persons of the most estimable character.

This view, however, overlooks several facts. If we disregard the chronic quarrels in all the colonies, growing out of the exercise of the royal prerogatives, Virginia and Massachusetts especially had been aroused on the abstract questions concerning the relations of the colonies to Great Britain, and in them the earliest demonstrations of hostility to the Stamp Act were manifested. In the famous "Parsons Case" argued by Patrick Henry in December, 1763, in words which rang through Virginia because they affected every man in that colony, he drew the prerogative into question, not only in regard to the ecclesiastical supremacy of the Anglican hierarchy, but also on the right of the king to negative the "Two-penny Act" of the colonial assembly. In Massachusetts, James Otis, in 1761, arguing the writs of assistance, assumed the natural rights of the colonists to absolute independence. But the promulgation of none of these theories of abstract rights accounts for the general outbreak in 1765. Its most potent influence was the enforcement of the navigation acts in the great commercial centres, and the ruin threatening New England through the breaking up of her trade with the French West Indies and the Spanish Main[47] by the modification of the Sugar Act in 1764. The staples of New England were fish, cattle, and lumber. The better quality of fish found a market in Europe, but this trade was subject to competition. For the poorer quality the chief market was in the French West Indies, where by the French law it could be exchanged only for molasses. This was shipped to New England, and used not only in its raw state, but distilled into rum, which, besides supplying home consumption, was to some extent exported to Africa in exchange for slaves. This trade and commerce with the Spanish Main was the chief source of the wealth of New England. But in 1733, to protect the sugar industry of the English West India islands, a duty amounting to prohibition was laid on all sugar and molasses imported into the American colonies from the French islands. So long as this act was not enforced, it did little harm; but if enforced, it would not only ruin the trade in rum and lumber, but injure the fisheries also, for the English islands were limited in population and had no liking for poor fish. The French, besides being more numerous, were less particular as to their diet; but if they could not sell molasses, they would not buy fish. It was proposed to modify and enforce this act. Minot[48] says: "The business of the fishery, which, it was alleged, would be broken up by the act, was at this time estimated in Massachusetts at £164,000 sterling per annum; the vessels employed in it, which would be nearly useless, at £100,000; the provisions used in it, the casks for packing fish, and other articles, at £22,700 and upwards; to all which there was to be added the loss of the advantage of sending lumber, horses, provisions, and other commodities to the foreign plantations as cargoes, the vessels employed to carry fish to Spain and Portugal, the dismissing of 5000 seamen from their employment, the effects of the annihilation of the fishery upon the trade of the province and of the mother country in general, and its accumulative evils by increasing the rival fisheries of France. This was forcibly urged as it respected the means of remittances to England for goods imported into the province, which had been made in specie to the amount of £150,000 sterling, beside £90,000 in the treasurer's bills for the reimbursement money, within the last eighteen months. The sources for obtaining this money were through foreign countries by the means of the fishery, and would be cut off with the trade to their plantations." This was what the enforcement of the molasses act meant. Neither the duties laid in 1764 nor the collection of the taxes anticipated from the Stamp Act of 1765 would have produced a tithe of the evil that would have followed. John Adams,[49] confirming the statement of Minot, says: "The strongest apprehensions arose from the publication of the orders for the strict execution of the molasses act, which is said to have caused a greater alarm in the country than the taking of Fort William Henry did in the year 1757."[50] Rumors of the intention of the ministry had been rife for some time, and in January, 1764, the Massachusetts Assembly wrote to their agent in London that the officers of the customs, in pursuance of orders from the Lords of the Treasury, had lately given public notice that the act, in all its parts, would be carried into execution, and that the consequences would be ruinous to the trade of the province, hurtful to all the colonies, and greatly prejudicial to the mother country.[51]

Besides the rumors of the modification of the Sugar Act came others respecting new duties, and a Stamp Act. In its alarm, the General Court determined to send Hutchinson to London as special agent, to prevent, if possible, the intended legislation. He was in favor of allowing the colonies the freest trade, but acknowledged the supremacy of Parliament.[52] No man knew the colonies better, or was better able to present their just claims, than Hutchinson. He had much at stake in the colony in which he was born, and to which he had rendered many and honorable services. No man loved her better, or was more worthy of honor from her. He was chosen by both Houses; but Governor Bernard suggested doubts as to the expediency of his going to England without the special leave of the king; and subsequently the project was laid aside in consequence of some rising suspicions as to his political sentiments.[53]

Ruin threatened New England. A Stamp Act was not needed to set her aflame; and the other colonies soon had reasons of their own for joining her in the general opposition. All parties were agreed as to the danger, but they differed as to the remedy.

The reports which reached America in the winter of 1764, respecting the intentions of the ministry to raise a revenue from the colonies, were verified in the following spring. The substance of Grenville's resolutions (with the exception of that respecting stamps, which was laid aside for the present) became a law April 6, 1764. Bancroft has summarized this act as "a bill modifying and perpetuating the act of 1733, with some changes to the disadvantage of the colonies; an extension of the navigation acts, making England the storehouse of Asiatic as well as of European supplies; a diminution of drawbacks on foreign articles exported to America; imposts in America, especially on wines; a revenue duty instead of a prohibitory duty on foreign molasses; an increased duty on sugar; various regulations to restrain English manufactures, as well as to enforce more diligently acts of trade; a prohibition of all trade between America and St. Pierre and Miquelon."[54]

Organized opposition to the ministerial measures began in Boston, and perhaps, at that time, could have begun nowhere else. For not only were the interests of that town, in the fisheries, trade, and navigation, the most considerable in the colonies, but there, as nowhere else in the same degree, for more than a century, had been operative causes of dissatisfaction connected with the navigation acts, the exercise of the royal prerogatives, and ecclesiastical affairs; and in no other section had Otis's declaration of the general principles of liberty found such ready acceptance.

The Grenville Act of April, 1764, was to take effect September 30. News of its passage had scarcely arrived in Boston before the citizens in town meeting, May 24, voted instructions[55] to their representatives in the General Court, which had been presented by Samuel Adams. They were directed to endeavor to prevent proceedings designed to curtail their trade, and to impose new taxes,—"for if their trade might be taxed, why not their lands?"—and to obtain from the General Assembly all needed advice and instruction, so that their agent in London might effectually "demonstrate for them all those rights and privileges which justly belonged to them either by charter or birth." Since the other colonies were equally interested, their representatives were also to endeavor to obtain coöperation in that direction.

Thus at the very outset the patriots sought counsel and union with the sister colonies. These instructions were scattered far and wide. The General Court came in on the 30th. June 1, letters from the London agent were referred to a committee of which Otis was one. On the 8th, _The Rights of the British Colonies_ was read,[56] and again on the 12th, when it was referred to the committee of which Otis was a member.[57] On the 13th a letter to Mauduit, their agent, was reported, which must have made his ears tingle,[58] for it was a scathing rebuke for neglect and inefficiency in not preventing the injurious legislation, and for making unwarranted concessions in behalf of the colony.[59] Otis went over the whole question of colonial rights and grievances, but by implication he admitted that representation in Parliament would prove satisfactory.[60] The same committee was directed to correspond with the other governments, requesting coöperation in their endeavors to effect the repeal of the Sugar Act and to prevent the Stamp Act. The letter of the committee, drawn by Otis, together with his _Rights of the Colonies_, was sent to the agent in London, to make the best use of them in his power. As this action taken by the House of Representatives, which did not seek the concurrence of the Council as usual, was not regarded as judicious by the moderate party, the governor was induced to call the General Court together on the 12th of October. In the mean time the temper of the merchants had become soured by revenue seizures to the amount of £3,000.[61]

The General Court (November 3), in answer to the governor's speech, elaborately discussed the act of Parliament, and the same day agreed upon a petition to the House of Commons, setting forth the injurious nature of the new measures and of the navigation laws, as well as deprecating their enforcement. This was accompanied by a letter to their agent, showing historically the services and expenses of the colony in various wars, and their willingness to share in the defence of the empire.[62] These papers—the petition and the letter—were drawn up by Hutchinson; but though able, candid, and convincing, their tone did not satisfy the more ardent patriots, especially when they were contrasted with Otis's fiery letter to the agent in June, or when compared with similar documents emanating from some other colonies,—that of New York in particular: for the discontent of the colonies, to which the Boston instructions doubtless contributed, was general, and manifested itself in petitions, remonstrances, and correspondence.[63]

The events of 1764 left no doubt as to the manner in which the people would receive the Stamp Act of 1765; nor, although with grievances of their own, were they unobservant of what was going on in England. "Wilkes and Liberty" was a familiar cry in Boston as well as in London, and the names Whig and Tory became terms of reproach.[64]

Notwithstanding the memorials and petitions of the colonial assemblies, and the remonstrances of their agents in London, George Grenville persevered in his determination to bring in a stamp bill. Since its first suggestion, he had listened patiently to the colony agents and other friends of America; but they proposed nothing better, or so good, if the colonies were to be taxed at all. They admitted that the stamp tax would be inexpensive in its collection, and general in its effect upon different classes of people. Indeed, so little did the agents understand the real feeling in America that they—and Franklin was among them—were quite ready, when the time came, to solicit positions as stamp-distributors for their friends, and Richard Henry Lee even asked a place for himself.[65] February 6, 1765, Grenville introduced his resolutions for a Stamp Act, and put forward his plan in a carefully prepared speech. Colonel Barré's opposition called forth the well-known question of Charles Townshend, and the still more famous rejoinder of the former. Pitt was away and ill. The debate occupied but one session of the Commons, and the ministers were directed to bring in a bill, which was done on the 13th. Numerous petitions against it, presented by colonial agents, were rejected under the rule which allowed no petition against a money bill. The bill passed both Houses, and on March 22 received the royal assent. But in America there was no apathy. If there had been a calm, it presaged the coming storm. The passage of the bill was known in America before the end of May, and from Virginia came the first legislative response. She spoke through the voice of her great orator. Of Patrick Henry's six resolutions, though supported by a powerful speech, only four, however, were carried, May 30, by a small majority, in a House in which the Established Church and the old aristocracy were very powerful.[66]

The General Court of Massachusetts did not meet until May 27, but set to work so promptly that the House, June 6, under the lead of James Otis, who had recovered from a fit of vacillation, voted that it was highly expedient that there should be a meeting, as soon as might be, of committees from the several colonial assemblies, "to consult together on the present circumstances of the colonies, and the difficulties to which they are and must be reduced by operation of the late acts of Parliament for levying duties and taxes on the colonies." It was agreed to send them a circular letter to that effect, recommending a congress, in the city of New York, the first Tuesday of October. This measure, which led to the Stamp Act Congress, was pushed through with an unanimous vote of the House (June 6), though probably not with the equally concordant opinion of the members; and the circular, which was dated June 8, was immediately dispatched.[67] James Otis, Oliver Partridge, and Timothy Ruggles—the last two having little heart in the matter—were chosen delegates. The response to the Massachusetts circular was neither unanimous, nor, from some of the assemblies, enthusiastic.[68] At this stage of the Revolution, in high offices and in provincial assemblies were friends of the royal government able to make their influence felt in opposition to popular measures. Nine of the colonies, however, were represented in the congress, and from others came expressions of good-will. In the mean time public sentiment was rapidly shaping itself into violent opposition to the act. In Boston the Sons of Liberty were on the alert. When the name of Andrew Oliver appeared among the stamp-distributors he was hanged in effigy from the Liberty Tree on the night of the 13th of August; and the next night the frame of a building going up on his land, and supposed to be intended as a stamp-office, was broken in pieces and used to consume the effigy before his own door.[69] On the 26th of the same month the records of the hated Vice-Admiralty Court were burned by the mob, the house of the comptroller of the customs sacked, and that of Chief Justice Hutchinson forcibly entered and left in ruins. His plate and money were carried off, and his books and valuable manuscripts were thrown into the streets. Nor did he or his family escape without difficulty. The militia were not called out to maintain order, for many of the privates were in the mob. Men of standing secretly connived at proceedings which they afterwards insincerely condemned. Though these violent outbreaks came earlier and were carried to greater excess in Massachusetts than in any other province, similar demonstrations followed in Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, and Pennsylvania.[70]

When the Stamp Act Congress met in New York, October 7, 1765, that city was the headquarters of the British forces in America, under the command of General Gage. Lieutenant-Governor Colden, then filling the executive chair, was in favor of the act, and resolved to execute it; but the Sons of Liberty expressed different sentiments. The Congress contained men some of whom became celebrated. Timothy Ruggles was chosen speaker, but Otis was the leading spirit. In full accord with him were the Livingstons of New York, Dickinson of Pennsylvania, McKean and Rodney of Delaware, Tilghman of Maryland, and Rutledge and the elder Lynch of South Carolina. New Hampshire, Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia failed to send delegates, but not for lack of interest in the cause. The Congress prepared a Declaration of Rights and Grievances, An Address to the King, a Memorial to the House of Lords, and a Petition to the House of Commons, and adjourned on October 25th. For a clear, accurate, and calm statement of the position of the colonies these papers were never surpassed; nor, until the appearance of the Declaration of Independence, was any advance made from the ground taken in them.[71]

It is not to be inferred from the results of their proceedings that there were no differences of opinion among the delegates. Several of them afterwards took sides with the king; and there was doubtless diversity of sentiment on the Stamp Act, as well as in Parliament, which reassembled January 14, 1766, under a different ministry from that which had carried the measure less than a year before. For in a few months after the passage of the act, George III., chiefly on personal grounds, had changed his legal advisers. After negotiations with Pitt had failed, a new ministry, with the Marquis of Rockingham as chief, and the Duke of Grafton and General Conway as Secretaries of State, was installed, July 13, 1765. It was a Whig ministry. With it, though not of it, was associated Edmund Burke, private secretary of Rockingham, and not long after, through his influence, a member of the House of Commons. This change of the ministry was regarded with favor by the colonists, and doubtless encouraged their resistance to the Stamp Act. The action of the colonists produced a great effect on the new ministry, and alarmed the British merchants trading with America. Their trade had been threatened by non-importation agreements made to take effect January 1, 1766, and their debts were imperilled by the determination of the colonists to withhold the amount of them as pledges for good conduct. The general confusion likely to arise in the administration of justice, and the transactions of the custom-house, from want of stamps, brought the ministry to their wits' end. Parliament assembled December 17th. But notwithstanding an effort by Grenville to bring on a general consideration of American affairs, the subject was postponed until after the holidays.

From Doyle's _Official Baronage_, iii. 170.—ED.]

In the mean time some embarrassment was anticipated from the want of stamps, November 1,[72] when the act was to go into operation. Governor Bernard (September 25) had called the attention of the House of Representatives to the courts, which guarded the property and persons of the inhabitants, and to the custom-houses, upon which depended legal trade and navigation. The House, in its answer, October 23, had not shared his excellency's apprehensions, but was not then quite ready to say, as it said three months later (January 17, 1766), "The courts of justice must be open,—open immediately,—and the law, the great rule of right in every county of the province, executed."[73] But this attitude had not been taken without intermediate steps. In December the town of Boston presented a petition to the governor and council for the reopening of the courts, which was supported by John Adams, who then first publicly identified himself with the patriot cause, of which he became one of the most efficient advocates. After some delay and inconvenience, the courts and custom-houses throughout the colonies, early in the spring, took the risk of proceeding without stamped papers, trusting to find their justification in necessity.

Parliament reassembled January 14, 1766. The king's speech opened with a reference to "affairs in America, and Mr. Secretary Conway laid before the House of Commons important letters and papers on the same subject." On the 17th a petition of the merchants of London trading with North America against the Stamp Act was presented. Then (January 28) followed the examination of Franklin, in relation to the Stamp Act, before the House, in committee.[74] With this mass of information before them, American affairs received an exhaustive discussion. The Stamp Act was repealed, and the royal assent was given March 18th. The debates on the Declaratory Act were no less full. It was a memorable session,—memorable for the first speech of Burke; for those great speeches of Pitt which placed him at the head of modern orators, for Grenville's masterly defence of his colonial policy, and for Franklin's examination. It was also memorable for the constitutional discussions of Mansfield and Camden in the House of Lords. If the reader finds it difficult to resist Mansfield's judicial interpretation of the British Constitution adverse to the American claim, he recognizes in the great principles then enunciated the force which popularized that Constitution and marked a forward movement of the British race.

The Declaratory Act—that the king, with the advice of Parliament, had full power to make laws binding America in all cases whatsoever—was passed. This gave Pitt some trouble, considering his emphatic declaration in that regard; but the liberal party in the colonies soon met it with the counter-affirmation that Parliament possessed no authority whatever in America except by consent of the provincial assemblies. If the colonists had not forced the British government from its position, they had advanced from their own. The repeal, however, caused great rejoicing on both sides of the Atlantic. British merchants expected no further trouble from non-importation agreements, and hoped that the colonists would now pay their debts,—amounting to £4,000,000. But there were misgivings on both sides. The ardent patriots were outspoken in condemning the Declaratory Act, which Franklin had thought would give no trouble. But the act of 1764, laying duties, remained; and the enforcement of the navigation laws—their real grievance—lost none of its vigor. Governor Bernard was under instructions to enforce the laws against illicit trade; and in addition to these official obligations, his share in the forfeitures of condemned goods laid his motives open to suspicion. Nothing could have been more unfortunate for his administration. It was also alleged that merchants were encouraged in schemes to defraud the revenue; and that when their ships and cargoes were compromised, they were seized and condemned. At a time when conciliatory measures were needed to reassure the colonists, the harshest were followed. Nevertheless, the repeal weakened the prerogative party on both sides of the water, and encouraged the liberal party by a knowledge of its power.

Fac-simile of an original in the library of the Mass. Hist. Society.—ED.]

Governor Bernard opened the General Court, May 29, 1766, with congratulations on the repeal of the Stamp Act. If he had stopped there he would have acted wisely; but he alluded to the "fury of the people" in their treatment of Hutchinson, and to some personal matters, which called forth a reply from the House couched in terms showing no abatement of animosity. This was increased on the receipt of another message from the governor (June 3), enclosing the Act of Repeal and the Declaratory Act, and at the same time informing them that he had been directed by Secretary Conway to recommend "that full and ample compensation be made to the late sufferers by the madness of the people", agreeably to the votes of the House of Commons. He also complained of their exclusion of the principal crown officers from the Council by non-election.[75] The General Court promptly availed themselves of this last topic for reply, instead of committing themselves on the matter of compensation. They did not fail, however, to vote a politic address of thanks to the king for assenting to the repeal of the Stamp Act, and to offer their grateful acknowledgments to Pitt and those members of the two Houses who had advocated it.[76] But the subject of compensation could not be passed by. The governor urged prompt compliance with the recommendation of Conway. The House, however, professing the greatest abhorrence of the madness and barbarity of the rioters, and promising their endeavors "to bring the perpetrators of so horrid a fact to exemplary justice, and, if it be in their power, to a pecuniary restitution of all damages", regarded compensation by the province as not an act of justice, but rather of generosity, and wished to consult their constituents. Therefore they referred the matter to the next session.[77]

In December the two Houses passed a bill granting compensation to those who had suffered losses in the Stamp Act riots, but, on the suggestion of Joseph Hawley, accompanied it with a general pardon, indemnity and oblivion to the offenders. Why they should have been so solicitous for the safety of those who had committed crimes, condemned in June in the severest terms, does not appear; and this invasion of the royal prerogative of pardon did not fail to attract the attention of the Parliament.[78]

In the late contest with Parliament the colonists had gained a victory, but it was neither final nor precisely on the right ground. As a matter of practical politics, they were ready to accept Pitt's distinction between commercial regulations and internal taxes. They took the repeal of the Stamp Act with thanks, but not as a finality. They participated in the lively demonstrations of joy which followed that event on both sides of the Atlantic; but thoughtful observers on both sides perceived that one of the most powerful agencies in effecting the repeal was the mercantile class, which had no intention of relinquishing its grasp upon colonial commerce. Nor was the popular feeling without guidance. It was the good fortune of the colonists, all through the long contest, to have statesmen like John Adams, Jay, and Dickinson, who could supplement the passionate appeals of Otis and some of his associates with the calm reasons of political philosophy. None rendered more valuable services in this respect than John Adams. In a series of papers which appeared in the _Boston Gazette_ in the summer and fall of 1765,—when the minds of the people were inflamed by the Stamp Act,—and were afterwards republished in London as _A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law_, he combated the ecclesiastical and feudal principles which lay at the bottom of the monarchical and Anglican system.

The substantial grievance of the commercial colonies was not the Stamp Act, which had not taken a farthing from their pockets. It was the enforcement of trade regulations, which impaired the value of the fisheries and dried up a principal source of revenue. A renewal of the contest, and for the first time on its true grounds, was not long postponed. The Rockingham ministry gave way, and Pitt, gazetted Earl of Chatham July 30, 1766, took the helm of state August 2d, and was the nominal head of the government until October, 1768. Among those associated with him were the Duke of Grafton, Charles Townshend, Conway, and the Earl of Shelburne. It was Pitt's misfortune—and his country's—during these stormy times, that when he was most needed he was disabled by sickness. Historians have speculated as to the probable pacification of America had Pitt—not Chatham—guided affairs.[79] Pitt's was a great name in America as well as in Europe. By his genius the French power in America had been destroyed. This the colonists knew. He had been generous in reimbursing their expenses in the late war. This, and his efforts in effecting the repeal of the Stamp Act, they remembered with gratitude. Whatever man could do in restoring things to their old order Pitt could have done. He might even have relinquished something of his claims for parliamentary supremacy in respect to trade and general legislation; but it is doubtful whether, even at that early period, he could have eradicated the ideas of independence which had taken possession of the colonists, or have arrested the movement which resulted in the independence of America and the overthrow of the royal prerogative in England.

The Amsterdam edition, 1782, of _Geschiedenis van het Geschil tusschen Groot-Britannie en Amerika ... door zijne Excellentie, den Heere John Adams_.

There is a likeness of John Adams as a young man engraved in his _Life and Works_, vol. ii. He says of himself at the time of the famous scene when Otis was making his plea against the Writs of Assistance, and he was taking notes of it, that the artist depicting it would have to represent the young reporter as "looking like a short, thick Archbishop of Canterbury" (_Works_, x. 245). There was a print published in London in 1783 showing a head in a circle, which is reproduced in the _Mag. of Amer. Hist._, xi. 93. Copley painted him once, in 1783, in court dress, and the painting now hangs in Memorial Hall, Cambridge. The head of this full-length picture was engraved for Stockdale's edition of Adams's _Defence of the Constitutions_, published in 1794; and the painting was never engraved to show the entire figure till it appeared in vol. v. of the _Works_ (A. T. Perkins's _Copley_, p. 27). Cf. the head in Bartlett Woodward's _United States_.

Stuart first painted him in 1812, and this picture belongs to his descendants, and is engraved in the _Works_, vol. i. There are copies of this picture by Gilbert Stuart Newton and B. Otis, both of which have been engraved. The Newton copy is in the Mass. Hist. Society (_Catal. of Cabinet_, no. 47; _Proc._, 1862, p. 3). The Otis copy has been engraved by J. B. Longacre (Sanderson's _Signers_, vol. viii.). Stuart again painted Adams in 1825, the year before he died, representing him as sitting at one end of a sofa. It is engraved on steel in the _Works_, vol. x., and on wood in the _Mem. Hist. Boston_, iii. 192. (Cf. Mason's _Stuart_, p. 125.) Another Stuart is owned by Mr. T. Jefferson Coolidge, of Boston.

A portrait by Col. John Trumbull also hangs in Memorial Hall, Cambridge; and Adams's likeness is also in Independence Hall. (Cf. Irving's _Washington_, quarto ed., vol. v.) A cabinet full-length by Winstanley, painted while Adams was at the Hague (1782), is in the Boston Museum (Johnston's _Orig. Portraits of Washington_, p. 93).

Among the contemporary popular engravings, mention may be made of that by Norman in the _Boston Magazine_, Feb., 1784; one in the _European Magazine_ (vol. iv. 83).

Stuart also painted a portrait of the wife of John Adams, which is engraved in the _Works_, vol. ix. A picture of her by Blythe, at the age of twenty-one, accompanies the _Familiar Letters_.

Views of the Adams homestead in Quincy, Mass., are given in the _Works_ (vol. i. p. 598); in _Appleton's Journal_ (xii. 385); in Mrs. Lamb's _Homes of America_. An india-ink sketch, showing a distant view of Boston beyond the house, is in the halls of the Bostonian Society.—ED.]

The Massachusetts Assembly was in no amiable frame of mind. When there was no cause for quarrel, they made one. Bernard had probably been advised to preserve a prudent silence respecting political affairs. At the opening of the session, January 28, 1767, in a message of less than ten printed lines, he recommended "the support of the authority of the government, the maintenance of the honor of the province, and the promotion of the welfare of the people", as the chief objects for their consultation. This called forth a captious reply, and a complaint because Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson, who had not been reëlected to the Council, appeared in the council-chamber at the opening of the session, at the request of the governor and as matter of courtesy. The House found in his presence, if voluntary, "a new and additional instance of ambition and lust of power."

Part of a letter in Smith and Watson's _Hist. and Lit. Curios_., 1st ser., pl. vii.—ED.]

In the spring of 1767, Parliament had occasion to inquire into some colonial legislation. In April, 1765, the Mutiny Act had been extended to the colonies. This was intended in part to provide for military offences not within the jurisdiction of civil courts, and in part to require the colonies in America, as in England in like cases, to provide for quartering the king's troops. The New York Assembly made only partial provision. When Sir Henry Moore, the governor, communicated to them the letter of Earl Shelburne, to the effect that the king expected obedience to the act, the Assembly resolved not to comply, and called in question the authority of Parliament. Parliament then took the matter in hand, and suspended their legislative authority until compliance.[80] This action brought them to terms. It made considerable stir throughout the colonies, and was regarded as a serious invasion of their rights.

The arrival of several companies of royal artillery at Boston, in the fall of 1766, and the quartering of them at the expense of the province, by order of the governor and council, gave the General Court occasion, at their session in January, 1767, to express their opinion about unauthorized expenditures of the public money, and to enquire if more troops were expected.[81] The governor explained the quartering of the troops, and said he had no expectation, except from common rumor, of the arrival of additional forces. But his statement failed to allay apprehensions of a design on the part of the ministry to support their measures by military power. Added to other causes of alarm in 1767 was a report that Anglican bishops were about to be supported in the colonies, at the expense and under the patronage of the British government.

In 1767 strife was renewed on what are known as the Townshend Acts. Charles Townshend was Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Chatham-Grafton ministry. He had reluctantly voted for the repeal of the Stamp Act, and still held to his opinions that the colonists should pay some share of the civil and military expenses arising from their defence and government; and if, to secure promptness and uniformity of action, some modification of their charters should be found necessary, then that ought to follow. In conformity with these views, he had given some pledges in respect to deriving a revenue from America, and, during Chatham's retirement, had brought forward his scheme of taxation in certain resolutions of the Committee of Ways and Means, April 16, 1767,[82] the substance of which was enacted June 29th, to go into effect November 20th. There were two acts known as the Townshend Acts: the first[83] providing for the more effectual execution of the laws of trade, and for the appointment of commissioners for that purpose; and the second[84] granting duties on glass, paper, colors, and tea, and legalizing writs of assistance. The revenue thus raised was to be applied to "defraying the charge of the administration of justice, and the support of the civil government in such provinces where it should be found necessary; and towards further defraying the expenses of defending, protecting, and securing the said dominions." Before the act went into operation Charles Townshend died (September 4, 1767), and Chatham's powers continued to be enfeebled by disease. It was the misfortune of Great Britain that both these able men should have been withdrawn from the public service during this critical period, and that the policy of each had to be represented by inferior men. Chatham's conciliatory methods had no fair trial; and Townshend's coercive measures were pressed neither with unity of purpose nor vigor of execution.

Between the passage of Townshend's Acts in the summer of 1767 and their taking effect in November, the colonists had ample time to study and organize opposition, stimulated by the arrival (November 5, 1767) of Burch and Hulton, two of the five commissioners of customs who had been sent over to enforce them. At first the people expressed their resentment, in which, as usual, those of Boston took the lead, by renewing their non-importation agreements. In the mean time efforts had been made to introduce domestic manufactures.[85] These practical measures in Massachusetts were supplemented by one of the ablest discussions of colonial rights which had yet appeared. In the early winter of 1767-8 John Dickinson published in a Philadelphia newspaper a series of essays entitled _The Farmer's Letters_, which soon attracted notice both in America and England.

From _An impartial History of the War in America_ (Boston, 1781), vol. i. p. 325, engraved by J. Norman, a Boston engraver.

In 1772, when Adams was forty-nine, John Hancock commissioned Copley to paint pictures of Adams and himself, to commemorate their political union, and the two portraits hung for many years in the Hancock mansion on Beacon Street in Boston, before they were given to the town. That of Adams is a three-quarters length, and shows him standing at a table, holding a paper, in the attitude of speaking (Perkins's _Copley_, p. 28). As engraved by H. B. Hall, it is given in Wells's _Life of Samuel Adams_, vol. i.; and it is also engraved in Delaplaine's _Repository_ (1815); in Bancroft, vol. vii. (orig. ed.), and in other places, as well as, on wood, in the _Mem. Hist. of Boston_ (iii. 35). After having hung for some years in Faneuil Hall, it has now been transferred to the Art Museum. It was engraved—the bust only—by Paul Revere, for the _Royal American Mag._, April, 1774, and a reproduction of this is given by Wells (vol. ii.). A copy of the original was made by J. Mitchell, and from this a mezzotint by Samuel Okey was issued at Newport in 1775.

Another and smaller picture, also by Copley (Perkins, p. 29), and said to have been painted in 1770, hangs in Memorial Hall, Cambridge, and has been engraved in the _Mem. Hist. of Boston_, ii. 438. Cf. Sanderson's _Signers_, vol. ix.

The Copley type of head characterizes the engraving by J. Norman, given above from the Boston edition of a current history. The London edition (1780) of the same book has a picture which has little resemblance to the Copley type, as will be seen by the fac-simile likewise herewith given, and marked "London, 1780."

There was a picture made late in life by John Johnson, which has been destroyed; but from a mezzotint of it, made in 1797 by Graham, H. B. Hall reëngraved it for Wells's third volume, and on wood in Higginson's _Larger History_, p. 255.

The statue by Miss Whitney follows the Copley head. One copy of this is in the Capitol at Washington, and another in Dock Square, in Boston.—ED.]

Their influence among all classes was widespread and profound.

The year 1768 was one of the most momentous of the Revolutionary period. Hitherto the colonists, in defence of their property, had denied the supremacy of Parliament as based on usurpation; but now, in defence of their privileges, they denied the prerogative of the king, the source of their political existence. This grew out of the Massachusetts Circular Letter. The General Court came together December 30, 1767. John Hancock, James Otis, and Joseph Hawley were prominent members, but though James Otis was still active, Samuel Adams was the master spirit. Never was his practical sagacity more serviceable to the cause; never did his genius for politics shine brighter. His fruitful pen is apparent in the remarkable series of state papers called forth by the Townshend Acts, comprising the letter of the House to their London agent (January 12, 1768), the Petition to the king (January 20), and the Circular Letter to the assemblies of the several colonies (February 11).[86] If the Townshend Acts were to be successfully resisted, union of sentiment and action among all the colonies was essential. This was the object of the circular letter. It was an arraignment of Parliament and the ministry in respect to the revenue acts, and the system by which the British government proposed to make civil officers, including the judges, the instruments for its enforcement; and it solicited an interchange of opinions on these subjects.[87] Governor Bernard watched the proceedings of the House with the deepest interest, nor was he long in doubt as to the nature of the circular letter, for two days after its adoption a copy of it was proffered, in case he desired it.[88] This letter was preceded (besides the documents already mentioned) by letters to the Marquis of Rockingham, General Conway, Lord Camden, and to the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury. The details of these papers cannot be given here. They present the whole case of the colonies, their rights, their grievances, their remonstrances, and their petitions. They proceeded mainly from the pen of Samuel Adams, who, when he had shaken himself clear from profuse professions of loyalty and disclaimers of "the most distant thoughts of independence", rose to the annunciation of the loftiest principles of statesmanship, in the declaration that "the supreme legislative, in any free country, derives its power from the constitution, by the fundamental rules of which it is bounded and circumscribed;"—"that it is the glory of the British Constitution that it hath its foundation in the law of God and nature;"—"that the necessity of rights and property is the great end of government;"—"that the colonists are natural-born subjects by the spirit of the law of nature and nations;" and "that the laws of God and nature were not made for politicians to alter." Nor does he confine himself to the enunciation of abstract principles, but states the rights of the colonists of Massachusetts on historical grounds, and shows the oppressive and impolitic nature of the acts complained of.[89] Changes were taking place in the Grafton ministry which boded evil to the colonies. Shelburne, the most liberal friend of the Americans, was succeeded by Hillsborough in December, 1767, and Conway by Weymouth, January 20, 1768. While the circular letter was on its way to the colonies and to Westminster (for it was intended also for England), events were occurring at Boston which showed the temper of the people, and had no inconsiderable influence upon the action of the British government. The anniversary of the repeal of the Stamp Act, March 18, 1768, did not pass without popular demonstrations of ill-will to the customs officials, nor did the governor escape abusive language from the mob.[90] For some years these officers had been resisted in making seizures of uncustomed goods, which were frequently rescued from their possession by interested parties, and the determination of the commissioners of customs to break up this practice frequently led to collisions; but no flagrant outbreak occurred until the seizure of John Hancock's sloop "Liberty" (June 10, 1768), laden with a cargo of Madeira wine. The officer in charge, refusing a bribe, was forcibly locked up in the cabin, the greater part of the cargo was removed, and the remainder entered at the custom-house as the whole cargo. This led to seizure of the vessel, said to have been the first made by the commissioners, and for security she was placed under the guns of the "Romney", a man-of-war in the harbor. For this the revenue officers were roughly handled by the mob. Their boat was burned, their houses threatened, and they, with their alarmed families, took refuge on board the "Romney", and finally in the Castle. These proceedings undoubtedly led to the sending additional military forces to Boston in September.[91]

The General Court was in session at the time, but no effectual proceedings were taken against the rioters. Public sympathy was with them in their purposes, if not in their measures. But the inhabitants of Boston, in town meeting on the 14th, in an address to Governor Bernard, probably drawn by Otis,[92] among other matters complained of being invaded by an armed force. With grim humor, the address represents the commissioners, who had fled for safety to the Castle, as having "of their own notion" relinquished the exercise of their commission, and expressed the hope that they would never resume it, and demanded of the governor to give immediate order for the removal of the "Romney" from the harbor. Some weeks later (June 30) the Council passed the customary resolution, setting forth "their utter abhorrence and detestation" of the riotous proceedings, and desiring that the governor, through the attorney-general, would prosecute all guilty persons, that they and "their abettors might be brought to condign punishment."[93]