Farmer George Volume Ii Part 1

Farmer George.

Volume 2.

by Lewis Melville.

VOL. II

CHAPTER XIII

ENGLAND AND AMERICA. I. THE STAMP ACT

George Grenville will live in history as the statesman who took the first step seriously to alienate the American colonies from the motherland. He was, indeed, an unfortunate man, for he is doomed to be remembered only by the magnitude of his mistakes. He attacked Wilkes, and that demagogue at once took a place in the line of heroes who have fought for the liberty of the subject against the oppression of the Crown; he taxed a colony, and not long after England had to deplore the loss of the United States: indeed, the only act that Dr. Hunt can find to the credit of Grenville's judgment was the purchase, for 70,000 from the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of Athol, of the Isle of Man, which then for the first time came completely under the royal authority.[1]

[1] _Political History of England, vol. X, 1760-1801._

Of course, the idea to tax the American colonies did not arise with Grenville. It had been suggested by an American governor to Walpole, who, however, was too wary to entertain the scheme. "No, it is too hazardous a measure for me," he said drily; "I shall leave it to my successors."[2] But those who guided the helm of State immediately after him were also careful not to deal with the question except by ignoring it, and consequently it was left for Grenville to undertake, under pressure, it is said, from the King.[3] "I have heard it doubted whether the measure originated with Mr. George Grenville," John Nicholls has written. "I have heard it intimated the measure originated with the King, that is to say, with the King's secret advisers; and that Mr.

Grenville acceded to the plan with considerable reluctance. I have no means of knowing whether the measure originated with Mr. Grenville or with the King. But from the unremitting obstinacy with which the King persevered in the wish to impose taxes on the Colonies by a British Parliament, every man must see that it may fairly be called the favourite measure of his reign."[4]

[2] c.o.xe: _Memoirs of Sir Robert Walpole_.

[3] "The idea to tax the colonies seems to have been the King's, and it is said that Grenville believed that even the attempt must have alarming consequences." Galt: _George III, his Court and Family_.

[4] _Recollections and Reflections._

It is an axiom of the const.i.tution that the King can do no wrong, and therefore, whoever proposed the scheme, the responsibility falls on the shoulders of the responsible ministers of the Crown, who, on March 10, 1764, laid before Parliament resolutions for further regulating American commerce, for the prevention of smuggling, and for the maintenance of a small standing army of 10,000 men. Certain port dues were to be raised, though they were to be counterbalanced by concessions in other directions; but the increase in revenue from this source would not suffice to maintain the garrison, the cost of which was estimated at 350,000 a year; and it was proposed to raise 100,000 by an Act requiring that all legal doc.u.ments should have stamps.

This was, indeed, an innovation, for hitherto custom duties had been imposed upon the colonists solely for the purpose of regulating trade: the Stamp Act would raise revenues from them. There was something to be said in defence of the Act, for though the late war had not been undertaken solely as a defence of the colonies, yet a great expense had been incurred by the operations necessary to repress the intrusions of the French Canadians. Was it right, Grenville asked, that the colonies should be defended by England, and should contribute nothing towards the cost of their defence? To Grenville, who never looked ahead, this seemed unreasonable, for, he contended, since the money raised in America was to be spent there, there could be no justifiable objection to the tax which it was proposed to impose; but, while he pointed out to the colonial agents resident in London that the tax was reasonable and an easy and equitable way to raise the money, he expressed his willingness, if the colonists disliked the scheme, to abandon it if the colonists would raise the money themselves in some other way. In his desire to be conciliatory he decided to defer the introduction of the Stamp Act until America had time to express an opinion.[5]

[5] The King's Speech at the prorogation of Parliament on April 19, 1764, contained a reference to the measures respecting America. "The wise regulations which have been established to augment the public revenues, to unite the interests of the most distant possessions of my crown, and to encourage and secure their commerce with Great Britain, call for my hearty approbation."

Early in 1765 the Stamp Act was introduced, and pa.s.sed the House of Commons with but forty dissentients. The debate, Burke says, was extremely languid. Pitt, suffering from gout, was unable to be present, but Conway[6] and Beckford protested against the measure, and Barre[7], more far-seeing than most, denounced it in a startling speech, in which he referred to the colonists as "sons of liberty." "Children planted by your care!" he exclaimed. "No! your oppressions planted them in America; they fled from your tyranny to a then uncultivated and inhospitable country! They nourished by your indulgence! They grew by your neglect of them! They protected by your arms! They have n.o.bly taken up arms in your defence." The Bill, which was to come into operation on November 1, pa.s.sed the House of Lords without a division, and the Royal a.s.sent was given on March 22.

[6] Henry Seymour Conway (1721-1795), lieutenant-general 1759, general 1772, field-marshal 1793.

[7] Colonel Isaac Barre (1726-1802).

The question, however, was in England "little understood and less attended to";[8] and contemporary memoirs may be ransacked in vain for any reference thereto. Even Walpole, whose letters form so detailed a chronicle of events, dismissed it cavalierly. "There has been nothing of note in Parliament," he wrote to Lord Hertford on February 12, 1765, "but one slight day on the American taxes, which Charles Townshend supporting, received a pretty heavy thump from Barre, who is the present Pitt and the dread of all vociferous Norths and Rigbys, on whose lungs depended so much of Mr. Grenville's power." The fact of the matter was that England had not realized the importance of colonies, and practically nothing was known in the motherland of her possession. "I suppose you are violent for your American friends," Lady Sarah Bunbury, so late as July 6, 1775, wrote to Lady Susan O'Brien. "I hope they are good sort of people, but I don't love Presbyterians and I love the English soldiers, so that I at present have a horror of those who use them ill beyond the laws of war, which _scalping_ certainly is, and I don't believe a word of the soldiers doing more than they ought; you know one is always unreasonable when one's prejudiced."[9]

[8] Horace Walpole: _Memoirs of George III_.

[9] _Life and Letters of Lady Sarah Lennox._

Now the colonists were, of course, no more addicted to scalping and other practices "beyond the laws of war" than the English; and the knowledge that these and similar ideas prevailed at home undoubtedly infused a feeling of bitterness into their love for the country of their descent. Moreover, very naturally, they resented the almost ostentatious display of their unimportance in the eyes of English ministers, which became known to them when, to give one example from many, on the resignation of the Duke of Newcastle, a whole closetful of American despatches was found unopened.[10] They were English, and proud of their descent, a hardy, frugal, independent folk, determined not to be treated as a subject race; the last people in the world to brook interference, and the first to remember that they were colonies, not conquests, brothers, not slaves. They were simple in their habits and in their ideas, and, in some places, Puritanical to excess--the stool of repentance and the scold's gag were still in use, and they had antic.i.p.ated the publican's "black list"; but as a nation they were thriving, and the towns of Boston, New York, Charleston, and Philadelphia were so many convincing proofs of their increasing wealth.

[10] _Walpoliana._

"Lord Suss.e.x told Sir Denis le Marchant that one of the Under-Secretaries of that day said to him, 'Mr. Grenville lost America because he read the American despatches, which his predecessors had never done;' and so complete a sinecure was the Board of Trade then considered, that a Colonel Bladen, one of the commissioners, happening to apply himself to the duties of his office, the Colonel went by the name of 'Trade,' while his colleagues were called 'The Board.'"--Albemarle: _Memoirs of Rockingham_.

The colonists were bound to the motherland by a strong feeling of loyalty, by fear of the French-Canadians, whose aggressions they were not strong (or perhaps, it is more accurate to say did not realize they were strong) enough to repel, and also by the prevailing jealousy between the different provinces which was so strong that Otis in 1765 declared that, if left to itself, "America would be a mere shambles of blood and confusion." England's treatment of the colonies was not harsh, but the tactless treatment aroused even more discontent than an illiberal policy. The Americans were continually being irritated by the att.i.tude of the governors sent out by the committee of the Privy Council responsible for colonial government, but paid by the provinces over which they ruled, who did not understand them, made no attempt to learn their habits, and showed little or no regard for the a.s.semblies in their districts. "Such wrong-headed people," said one of these officers, "I thank G.o.d I never had to do with before." The Americans, on the other hand, complained of many of the people who were sent from England to occupy official positions. "For many years past most of the places in the gift of the Crown have been filled with broken Members of Parliament, of bad, if any, principles, pimps, _valets-de-chambre_, electioneering scoundrels, and even livery servants." General Huske wrote about 1758: "In one word, America has been for many years made the hospital of Great Britain for her decayed courtiers and abandoned, worn-out dependants. I can point you out a chief justice of a province appointed from home for no other reason than publicly prost.i.tuting his honour and conscience at an election; a livery servant that is secretary of a province, appointed from hence; a pimp, collector of a whole province, who got this place of the man in power for prost.i.tuting his handsome wife to his embraces and procuring him other means of gratifying his l.u.s.t. Innumerable are instances of this sort in places of great trust."[11]

[11] Phillimore: _Life of Lyttelton_.

These annoyances were but pin-p.r.i.c.ks, compared with many restrictions placed upon their trade. There were laws ordaining that all trade between the colonies should be carried in ships built in England or the colonies, and forbidding the exportation of tobacco, sugar, cotton, wool, and other articles except to England and her other colonies, as well as a host of minor regulations, such as that in the woods of Maine no tree with a diameter greater than two feet at a foot above ground should be cut down, except to make a mast for a ship of the royal navy.

It is true that on the other hand no Englishman might buy tobacco that was not grown in America or Bermuda, that the export trade to the motherland was encouraged by bounties, and that owing to a system by which duties were remitted on exportation to America they could purchase continental goods more cheaply than they could be obtained in England[12]; but these compensations did not make amends, in the colonists' eyes, for the regulations that cramped their trade.

[12] William Hunt: _Political History of England, 1760-1801_.

These restrictions were much resented, and, as the volume of their commerce increased, might well have goaded the colonists into rebellion, had they not chosen the path of least resistance, and evaded them through the simple device of smuggling. The Sugar Act of 1733, designed in the interests of British merchants, forbidding the importation of sugar and mola.s.ses from the French West Indies except on payment of a prohibitive duty, aroused the ire of the Americans, who, realizing the uselessness of pet.i.tions,[13] only plunged still deeper into the contraband trade. This, in turn, angered those who had expected to benefit by the Act, and many protests to enforce the law were made to the home government, who turned a deaf ear to such representations until after the Peace of Paris, when Bute sent revenue cutters to cruise off the American coast. The officers of these ships were sworn to act as revenue officers and smuggling was somewhat checked at the cost of a vast deal of irritation at the summary methods of the sailors.

[13] Pet.i.tions from Provincial a.s.semblies were ignored by ministers at home, and even memorials from such important states as Ma.s.sachusetts and New York, ordered by the King in Council to be laid before Parliament, were suppressed.

The easy pa.s.sage of the Stamp Act showed that Parliament did not antic.i.p.ate any considerable opposition from America, and even the agents of the colonies, including Benjamin Franklin, who represented Pennsylvania, thought that a small standing army was desirable, and believed the colonies had no choice but to submit. The colonists themselves, however, were not slow to express a very decided opposition to the Act, and perhaps their objection was not the less vehement because Grenville had prefaced the introduction of the resolutions by stating that they were an "experiment towards further aid." That, though, was but a trifle beside the main issue. Hitherto all taxes in the colonies had been voted by the several Provincial a.s.semblies: now was a.s.serted the right of England to tax her colonies. Not to protest was tacitly to admit the theory of the absolute dominion of the motherland, and at once a stand was made against the infringement of the doctrine that in free nations taxation and representation go hand in hand. Some attempt was made in England to show that America was virtually represented in Parliament, but this fallacy was exposed by Pitt: "There is an idea in some minds that the colonies are virtually represented in the House. I would fain know by whom an American is represented here. Is he represented by any knight of the shire in this kingdom? Would to G.o.d that respectable representation were augmented to a greater number! Or, will you tell him that he is represented by any representative of a borough? a borough which perhaps its own representatives never saw. This is what is called _the rotten part of the const.i.tution_. It cannot continue a century. If it does not drop it must be amputated. The idea of a virtual representation in this House is the most contemptible that ever entered into the head of man; it does not deserve a serious refutation."[14]

[14] _Speech during the Debate on the Address, January 14, 1766._

It was not denied by the colonists that the money raised in their country would be spent in their country, but this was only a further aggravation, for they resented the idea of a standing army, perhaps remembering the abuses which in earlier days it had been called upon to support in England. They contended that in time of war they had shown themselves willing and able to raise a force at the request of the governors, for which act they had been thanked by Parliament; and they a.s.serted that in times of peace their militia was sufficient to protect them. The fact that the Stamp Act relaxed certain restrictions on their trades weighed as nothing against a subsequent measure obliging them to provide the British troops stationed amongst them with quarters and also with fire, candles, beds, vinegar and salt. This was an invasion of the privacy of their homes that, in time of peace, they would not endure.

"Sad news in the papers--G----d knows who's to blame!

The Colonies seem to be all in a flame, This Stamp Act, no doubt, might be good for the Crown, But I fear 'tis a pill that will never go down."[15]

[15] Anstey: _The New Bath Guide_.

No sooner did the colonists learn of the pa.s.sing of the Stamp Act than a cry of protest rang out from all over the country. James Otis, the King's Advocate, resigned his official position in order to be at liberty to denounce the action of the home Government, a task in which he was ably seconded by John Adams; while Patrick Henry, whom Byron described as

"the forest-born Demosthenes, Whose thunder shook the Philip of the seas,"

introduced into the Virginian House of Burgesses a set of resolutions, that the first settlers in that province had brought with them, and transmitted to their posterity, all the privileges and immunities enjoyed by the people of England, that they enjoyed the right of being governed by their own a.s.sembly in the article of taxes and internal police, and that the Stamp Act was illegal, unconst.i.tutional and unjust.[16] "Caesar had his Brutus," Henry concluded a violent speech.

"Charles the First his Cromwell, George the Third"--here he was interrupted by cries of "Treason" which disconcerted him for a moment when he recovered himself and continued--"may profit by their example.

If this be treason make the most of it." It showed the temper of the nation that Virginia, hitherto regarded as the most loyal state, approved the resolutions by a large majority. The Governor immediately dissolved the a.s.sembly, but, like all the acts of the English in America at this time, this move was too late to be effective, for the resolutions were regarded by other provinces as a precedent, and were adopted by numerous other legislative bodies.

[16] Adolphus: _History of England_.

Boston, which had had experience of the utter futility of pet.i.tions to the King and to Parliament, flamed at once into violence. The a.s.sembly there voted thanks to General Conway and Colonel Barre for their opposition in the House of Commons to the Stamp Act, and ordered their portraits to be placed in the Town Hall. On August 26 a mob destroyed the Stamp Office, the Admiralty records, and the houses of public officials who had given offence by accepting the objectionable Act.

Hutchinson, the Lieutenant-Governor and Chief-Justice of Ma.s.sachusetts, was maltreated; while Oliver, the Secretary of the province, who had accepted the post of Stamp-Distributor, was hung in effigy on a tree in the main street of the town, his house destroyed and himself compelled by the threatening crowd to resign his new appointment, and to swear--beneath the tree where his effigy swung in the breeze--that under no circ.u.mstances would he ever resume it. The rioters were supported by the overt sympathy of their countrymen. Mayhew, a popular preacher, chose for the text of a sermon, "I would that they were even cut off which trouble you"; the Governor, who had arrested a prominent merchant, one of the ring-leaders of the disturbances, was compelled to release him, under threat from the civic guard that otherwise they would disband themselves; while some other imprisoned citizens were set free by the mob, which forced the gaolers to surrender the keys.

November 1, when the Stamp Act came into operation, was kept as a day of mourning. The bells were m.u.f.fled and tolled and mock funerals pa.s.sed through the streets; copies of the Act were hawked through the towns with the t.i.tle of "England's Folly and the Ruin of America"; while the newspapers appeared with a death's-head in place of the stamp which by the new measure they had to bear. Boston was content to hoist half-mast the colours of the shipping in its harbour, but Philadelphia spiked the government guns in the town and in the barracks, and other towns displayed their resentment in similar practical ways.[17]

[17] Almon: _Collection of Papers_.

It was found impossible, however, to distribute the stamps; nay, more, it was impossible even to keep them, for the rioters kept strict watch and as each box was landed, wrested it from the authorities, and consigned it to the flames. The Governor of New Jersey had to request that the stamps should be kept on a man-of-war, while on November 7, Francis Bernard, the Governor of Ma.s.sachusetts, informed Admiral Lord Colville that such was the "increasing licentiousness" of the people that he feared that he would be obliged to quit his post. The position indeed was untenable. Every legal doc.u.ment to be valid required a stamp, but there was no stamped paper to be had. The law courts could proceed only with criminal cases, for which no stamps were required; and business was at a standstill, until the Governors, realizing the danger of allowing this state of affairs to continue, on the ground that it was impossible to secure stamps, issued certificates to the merchants permitting them to send their ships on voyages without complying with the Act. Not content with this licence, however, the Council of Ma.s.sachusetts went so far as to enter a resolution in their journals that it was lawful to transact business without stamps.[18] A more fatal blow to the mother-country was delivered by the princ.i.p.al colonial merchants, who agreed in solemn conclave to order no more goods from England, to cancel all orders already given, and to send no more remittances to England in payment of debts until the Stamp Act was repealed--which last resolution could be excused only on the ground that all is fair in war.

[18] Stedman: _History of the American War_; Andrews: _History of the American War_.

Opposition in the colonies had been fanned by the change of government at home. The news of Grenville's fall in July had been received with delight, and the joy was intense when it became known that in the succeeding Rockingham administration, Conway, who had opposed the Stamp Act, had accepted the office of Secretary of State for the southern department. The occurrences in America were, however, still viewed with indifference in England, and the King in a letter to Conway, dated December 5, was one of the first to sound the note of alarm. "I am more and more grieved at the accounts of America. Where this spirit will end is not to be said. It is undoubtedly the most serious matter that ever came before Parliament; it requires more deliberation, candour, and temper than I fear it will meet with."[19] The trouble was alluded to in the King's Speech at the opening of Parliament on December 17. "Matters of importance," it was said, "had lately occurred in some of the colonies in America, which demand serious attention"; but such a reference was resented by George Grenville and his supporters, who attacked ministers for attempting to gloss over the recent events in America as "matters of importance," when, as a matter of fact, they contended, the colonies were in a state of rebellion.

[19] Albemarle: _Memoirs of Rockingham_.