No More Learning

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? THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH 45
reverence and regard for oaths, on which government so
much depends. This occasions a disregard to those acts
of trade which are calculated for its real benefit. This
entirely destroys the distinction which ought invariably
to be preserved in all trading communities between a
merchant and a smuggler. But the sugar act has thrown
down all distinction: Before this was published, a mer-
chant disdain'd to associate with the unfair trader. "1
The truth was that the income of many wealthy families
in the North--yea, the prosperity of whole provinces--
depended upon a trade which was approved by a robust
public opinion but forbidden by parliamentary statute.
The "Smuggling Interest" became a factor of great
potential strength in public affairs in the trading towns
of the North. '
Colonial smugglers felt the first impact of an opposing
imperial interest during the last intercolonial war,
when, covetous of large profits, they supplied the French
belligerents in America with foodstuffs, whereby they
were enabled to prolong the war. 3 In defiance of pa-
triotic duty, acts of Parliament, and the efforts of the
British and provincial administrations, not only was the
old iUicit intercourse with the French, continued but
many new routes were opened up. The early efforts of
the British government to suppress the traffic resulted
in more than doubling the average annual revenue from
the Molasses Act during the war, at a time, however,
1 Bos. Eve. Post, Nov. 21, 1763.
* Vide the important letters of Richard Oswald to Lord Dartmouth
in Stevens, Facsimiles, vol. xxiv, nos. 2032, 2034, 2037; Sagittarius's
Letters and Political Speculations (Boston, 1775), nos. i and iii, passim.
* The present account is based largely upon the excellent treatment
in Beer, Brit. Col. Policy, 1754-1765, pp. 72-131, and Root, Rels. of Pa.
with Brit. Govt. , pp. 76-84.
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? 46 THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
when the volume of smuggling had probably trebled or
quadrupled. 1 In 1760 and 1761, a vigorous employment
of the navy resulted in disturbing the centers of smug-
gling in the West Indies and in further disminishing its
volume.
The experience of the British government during the
war sharply revealed the strength, sordidness and energy
of the forces supporting the contraband trade. Prov-
incial governors had been bought out by the smugglers
in one or two instances; and from Massachusetts to
South Carolina, the Americans managed pretty success-
fully to control the vice-admiralty courts in their favor.
Governor Hamilton, of Pennsylvania, reported in 1760
that the most eminent lawyers of that province were re-
tained by the smugglers. In New-York, Lieutenant
Governor Colden complained in 1762 that his efforts
against illicit trade had failed of the desired effect be-
cause the enforcement of the law rested largely with
persons who had connections with smugglers or who
feared their resentment. 2 A prominent Rhode Island
lawyer averred that the courts of vice-admiralty had be-
come "subject to mercantile influence; and the king's
revenue sacrificed to the venality and perfidiousness of
courts and officers. "8
In Massachusetts, the smuggling merchants struggled
1The extent of this partial enforcement is indicated by the aggregate
amount of the revenue derived from the Molasses Act. The total
duties paid on molasses from 1734 to the close of 1755 amounted to
? 5,686, or a yearly average of ? 259. In the seven years, 1756-1762,
? 4,375 was collected, the yearly average being ? 625. For the years 1760
and 1761 the amounts were ? 1,170 and ? 1,189. Beer, op. cit. , pp. 115-
116 and f. n.
1Letter Books, vol. i, pp. 195-196.
1 Howard, M. , A Letter from a Gentleman at Halifax to his Friend
in Rhode Island (Newport, 1765).
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? THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH
47
hard to impair the efficiency of the customs collection
by instituting damage suits against customs officials in
unfriendly common-law courts. Toward the end of the
war, the services of James Otis, recently prosecuting
officer for the local vice-admiralty court and the most
eloquent lawyer of the province, were retained by the
merchants of Boston and Salem, in an attack on the leg-
ality of the general search warrants, or "writs of assist-
ance," which had proved an effective means of locating
contraband goods. Like Henry in Virginia, Otis made
a perfervid plea for the "inherent, inalienable, and inde-
feasible" rights of the colonists and particularly for the
privacy of one's home and warehouses from prying
customs officers acting under general search warrants. 1
But he lost his case. This failure led the Massachusetts
General Court to pass an act, which, if Governor Bernard
had not vetoed it, would have drawn the teeth from the
writs. This bill, the governor assured the Board of
Trade, was "the last effort of the confederacy against
the custom-house and Laws of Trade. "*
nf smuggling had been originally
undertaken by the British government as a war measure;
but before the war had term1nated, 1t became apparent
that a strict enforcement of the acts of trade was to be a
permanent peace policy. Pitt's circular dispatch of
August 23, 1760 marked the transition;3 the year 1763
brought a succession of unqualified steps in this direc-
tion. An act of Parliament of that year authorized the
1 For a bibliography of Otis's speech, vide Green, S. A. , g M. H. S.
Procs. , vol. vi, pp. 190-196.
'Palfrey, J. G. , Compendious History of New England (Boston,
1884), vol. iv, p. 313.
'Text in Quincy, Mass. Reports, p. 407.
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? 48 THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
use of the navy against smuggling in the colonies. 1 The
vicious practice of absenteeism in the customs service
was terminated: all colonial customs officials residing in
England were ordered to repair to their stations in
America. 2 In July, special instructions were sent to
colonial governors and naval commanders to suppress
illicit trade, especially the clandestine traffic carried on
directly with continental Europe. 3 In the last days of
the year, strict orders were issued from all the custom
houses in the northern district, requiring masters of
vessels to conform to the old Molasses Act "in all its
parts. "4 Earlv in T^AJ A~itrirnn newspapers recorded
the arrival of warships at various ports. The frequency
of seizures 1ncreased. 5
The publication of the orders to enforce the Molasses
Act "caused a greater alarm in this country than the
taking of Fort William Henry did in 1757," declared
Governor Bernard, of Massachusetts. 6 He reported that
it was common talk among Boston merchants that the
trade of the province was at an end, "sacrificed to the
West Indian Planters," and that every prudent man
should resort to farming and homespun. Lieutenant
13 George III, c. 22.
1 Kimball, G. S. , ed. , Correspondence of the Colonial Governors of
Rhode Island, 1723-1775 (Boston, 1002), vol. ii, p. 355.
1 Md. Arch. , vol. xiv, pp. 102-103; Prov. Gas. , Sept. 24, 1763, also
Mass. Gas. and News-Letter, Sept. 29.
4 Bos. Post-Boy, Jan. 2 and 9, 1764, contained such orders, under
date of Dec. 26, 1763, from the custom houses of the ports of Boston,
Salem, Piscataqua and Falmouth; Newport; New London and New
Haven; New York; Perth Amboy, Burlington and Salem, N. J.
6 Hutchinson, Hist, of Mass. Bay, vol. iii, pp. 160-163.
6 Bernard, Letters, p. 9. Commenting on this comparison, John
Adams declared in 1818: "This I fully believe and certainly know to
be true; for I was an eye and an ear witness to both of these alarms. "
Works (Adams, C. F. , ed. ), vol. x, p. 345.
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? THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH 49
Governor Colden at New York warned the Board of
Trade that the stoppage of trade with the foreign West
Indies would reduce importations from England and
force the people to do their own manufacturing. The
legislature of that province granted a bounty on hemp,
with the hope of providing a staple commodity for ex-
port to England in place of commodities from the foreign
West Indies. 1 Governor Franklin, of New Jersey, in-
formed the Board of Trade : " At present there are great
Murmurings among the Merchants, and others, in North-
America, on account of the Stop put to" the trade with
the foreign West Indies. 2 "Trade [is] very dull," wrote
a smuggling merchant of Philadelphia as early as Nov-
ember 12, 1763, after noting the presence of two men-of-
war in the river. "I suppose the number of Vessells
in this harbour, at this time, exceeds any that ever was
Knowne here & people not knowing what to do with
them. " At various times in the next twelvemonth he
lamented the great scarcity of cash and the vigilance of
the warships. They " are so very strict that the smallest
things don't escape their notice," he complained. 8 There
was, beyond question, a gloomy prospect ahead for the
smuggling merchants.
1Colden, Letter Books, vol. i, pp. 312-313; Weyler's N. Y. Gas. , Apr.
2, 1764. "The intercourse between the Dutch &c, & the Colonies (I
mean Dry Goods everywhere) ought to be entirely suppress'd, but the
rigorous execution of the Sugar [Act] is injurious," wrote Jonathan
Watts, a member of the New York council. 4 M. H. S. Colls. , vol. x,
p. 507-
11 N. J. Arch. , vol. ix, p. 404.
1"Extracts from the Letter-Book of Benjamin Marshall, 1763-1766,"
Pa. Mag. , vol. xx, pp. 204-212.
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?
CHAPTER II
THE FIRST CONTEST FOR COMMERCIAL REFORM
(1764-1766)
EVENTS were shaping themselves in England to accen-
tuate the economic distress which the commercial provinces
had already begun to feel. The Peace of Paris of 1763
marked a turning point in the relations of Great Britain
to her colonies. The mother country faced the complex
task of recasting her imperial policy, of safeguarding her
newly-acquired world empire, of readjusting the acts of
trade to meet the new situation and of improving their ad-
ministration. 1 The particularistic course of the colonial
legislatures during the recent war had shown that the re-
quisition system could not be depended upon to furnish a
permanent revenue for a colonial military establishment;
and the lawlessness of the colonial merchants had revealed
the need for reforming the machinery of administering the
trade laws. Forced to action by these conditions, Parlia-
ment, under the leadership of George Grenville, proceeded
to adopt an imperial policy which in its main principles
conformed to the views long maintained by the British mer-
cantile interests and their apologist, the Board of Trade.
In the light of subsequent history, the most important
1 " The several changes of territories, which at the last Peace took
place in the Colonies of the European world, have given rise to A
NEW SYSTEM OF INTERESTS; have opened a new channel of business;
and brought into operation a new concatenation of powers, both com-
mercial and political. " Pownall, T. , The Administration of the British
Colonies (London, 1768), vol. i, p. I.
5O
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? FIRST CONTEST FOR REFORM 51
feature of the legislation of 1764 was the fact that, for the
first time, Parl1ament prov1ded^specifically for thp raising
of a revenue in America. But as watchful colonists at the
tTme. viewed the umvonTed legislative activity, they were im-
pressed almost solely with the idea that their business inter-
ests were being vitally affected. It goes without saying that
they did not perceive or appreciate the problem of imperial
reorganization with which Parliament was wrestling. They
stood for a Ptolemaic conception of the empire, with Eng-
land as the sun and America the earth about which the sun
revolved; while the statesmen at home justified their course
in the terms of the Copernican theory. 1
The program of Parliament, therefore, so far as the
colonists were concerned, had to stand or fall upon its merits
as legislation dealing solely with colonial interests. The
group of enactments thus readily divided itself into two
parts, those provisions favorable to American commerce
and industry, and those detrimental.
The beneficial portions were of minor importance and
affected chiefly the plantat1on--DrQvjpces where relief was
not particularly nefHpfl South Carolina and Georgia were
allowed, upon payment of a slight duty, to export rice to
any part of America to the southward of those provinces,
in order that they might continue to dominate the markets
which they had entered during British occupation of certain
West India islands in the recent war. 2 As a means of en-
couraging the indigo industry, a protective duty was placed
1 Vide Beer, British Colonial Policy, 1754-1765, pp. 193-251, 274-286,
for an excellent presentation of the imperialistic point of view. Vide
Macpherson, Annals of Commerce, vol. iii, pp. 395-399, for a well-
balanced statement of the colonial view; also Col. Soc. Mass. Pubs. ,
vol. xiii, pp. 431-433.
'4 George III, c. 27. This liberty was extended to North Carolina
in the following year. 5 George III, c. 45.
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? 52 THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
on foreign indigo imported into the provinces. 1 On the
other hand, New England fishermen received concessions in
England, by which American whale-fins succeeded in secur-
ing a practical monopoly of the home market ;2 and colonial
rum distillers were favored by an absolute prohibition of
the introduction of foreign rum. s
The detrimental features of the acts were far-reaching
and fundamental in their influence upon American pros-
perity. 4 ResQJuifljaeasures--mere taken against smuggling.
Customs officials were granted ampler author1ty, ami the
powers of the admiralty courts were enlarged. In order
to protect customs officials from damage suits in common
law courts, it was provided that, in cases where the court
held there had been a probable cause for making a seizure,
the officers should not be liable for damages. In addition,
the burden of proof was placed on the owner of the seized
goods or vessel; and all claimants of such goods had to
deposit security to cover the costs of the suit. Stricter
registration of vessels was required. Because of the amen-
ability of vice-admiralty courts to local opinion in the vari-
ous provinces, a vice-admiralty court for all America was
authorized, in which an informer or prosecutor might bring
his suit in preference to the local court, if he so chose.
Equally alarming to the commercial provinces was the
plan to make the old Mol^sse^ Act really productive through
a reduction of rates. The former duty on molasses im-
1 4 George III, c. 15.
14 George III, c. 29. Instead of employing eighty or ninety sloops
in the whale fishery as prior to this time, New Englanders were em-
ploying one hundred and sixty before 1775. Macpherson, op. cit. , vol.
iii, pp. 401, 567-568.
14 George III, c. 15.
4 4 George III, c. 15. Only the main provisions are noted here.
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? FIRST CONTEST FOR REFORM 53
ported from the foreign West Indies was reduced from six-
pence per gallon to threepence, with the understanding that
the new rate would be collected. The old duty on raw
sugar was continued; and an additional duty was levied on
foreign refined sugar.
Other changes were made, which affected colonial mer-
chants only in lesser degree. The purpose of certain of
these was to enlarge the market for British merchandise
in America by enhancing the price of foreign manufactures.
Thus, the amount of the duty withheld in England upon
reshipment of foreign goods to the colonies was doubled. 1
Import duties were placed, for the first time, upon certain
varieties of Oriental and French drygoods when they were
landed in America. Wines, which hitherto had been im-
ported directly from Madeira and the Azores without duty,
were now required to pay a high tariff, while Spanish and
Portuguese wines, which as before were to be imported by
way of Great Britain, were to pay only a low duty. 8 Im-
port duties were also imposed on foreign indigo and foreign
coffee brought into the colonies. The list of articles which
could be sent to Great Britain alone was increased by the
addition of iron, whale-fins, hides, raw silk, potashes and
pearlashes. Slight duties were placed on coffee and pimento
when shipped from one colony to another.
The only regulation that directly concerned the planta-
tion provinces in any unfavorable way was the prohibition
of further issues of legal-tender currency in the provinces
outside oi New ungland. IfllS feStfaint was imposed upon
the compla1nt ot some British merchants engaged in Vir-
1 Prior to this time, the amount had been about 2% per cent.
1 The colonists had desired to obtain permission to make direct im-
portations of wine, fruit and oil from Spain and Portugal. Pa. Journ. ,
June 7, 1764; Bos. Gas. , June 11.
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? 54
THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
ginia trade and was merely an extension of the principle
which had been applied in 1751 to New England. 1
Dissatisfaction with the acts of 1764 was thus largely
a sectional matter, affecting chiefly the commercial prov-
inces. It is not surprising that the chief polemic efforts of
the colonists came from provinces such as Massachusetts,
Rhode Island and Pennsylvania; or that, in the one instance,
the author was a lawyer, who time and again had been
employed by smugglers and who sympathized with them
temperamentally;2 in the next instance, a merchant, who
was largely concerned in illicit trade with the West Indies; *
in the third, a gentleman-farmer and lawyer, fully cognizant
14 George III, c. 34; Franklin, Writings (Smyth), vol. v, pp. 85-86,
187-189; Russell, Review of American Colonial Legislation, pp. 120-124.
* Otis, James, The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and
Proved (Boston, 1764). This pamphlet, largely speculative, made the
novel assertion that the duties of 1764 were as truly a fiscal measure
as taxes on real estate would be. It should be remembered that Otis
had been retained by the merchants of Boston and Salem to attack the
legality of the writs of assistance in 1761. Otis, wrote Peter Oliver in
1781, "engrafted his self into the Body of Smugglers, and they em-
braced him so close, as a Lawyer and an usefull Pleader for them,
that he soon became incorporated with them. " Brit. Mus. Egerton
Mss. , no. 2671 (L. C. Transcripts). Leading merchants of Boston, like
Thomas Hancock and his nephew John, lost no opportunity to recom-
mend Otis as a lawyer to commercial houses in England. Brown, A. E. ,
John Hancock His Book (Boston, 1898), p. 33 et seq. Vide also Hutch-
inson, Mass. Bay, vol. iii, p. 201.
Closer to the economic roots of the troubles was the forceful pamph-
let. The Sentiments of a British American (Boston, 1764), written by
Oxenbridge Thacher, who had been Otis' colleague in the writs of
assistance case. Thacher died in 1765, before his usefulness to the
anti-parliamentary party had fully developed. For a characterization
of the two men, vide Adams, John, Works, vol. x, pp. 284-292.
1Hopkins, Stephen, The Rights of the Colonies Examined (Provi-
dence, 1764). Hopkins also had three sons and four nephews, all cap-
tains of vessels. Weeden, Econ. and Soc. Hist, of New Engl. , vol. ii,
pp. 584, 656, 658.
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? FIRST CONTEST FOR REFORM 55
of the sources from which the prosperity of his community
arose. 1
For the most part, this literature of protest contained a
cogent presentation of the economic springs of mercantile
prosperity. The prevailing note was sounded by a com-
ment in Thacher's pamphlet on the recent action of Parlia-
ment: "Does not this," he asked, "resemble the conduct
of the good wife in the fable who killed her hen that every
day laid her a Golden Egg? " The new measures for en-
forcing the acts of trade were roundly denounced, especially
the provisions for protecting customs officers from damage
suits in case of mistaken seizures, and the provisions grant-
ing to the informer or prosecutor the right to choose the
court in which he wished to sue. These regulations were
termed a denial of the common law and of trial by jury.
The new duties on foreign wines were complained of, on the
ground that wines had now to be brought to America by a
roundabout and expensive route. The restricting of iron
exports to Great Britain caused protest, especially in Penn-
sylvania, because cargoes of iron had always found a ready
market in Portuguese ports.
The chorus of denunciation rose loudest on the subject of
the new mojagggs duties. This appeared to the pamphleteers
a species of economic strangulation by which the colonies
were cut off from the source of their specie supply. "The
duty of 3d. per gallon on foreign molasses is well known
1 Dickinson, John, The Late Regulations respecting the British Colo-
nies . . . considered (Philadelphia, 1765). Though published after the
passage of the Stamp Act, attention was given almost exclusively to
the economic effects of the acts of 1764. Note the striking similarity of
Dickinson's views to Charles Thomson's arguments, urged in a letter
of November, 1765, to a London mercantile house. Thomson. Papers
(AT. Y. Hist. Soc. Colls. , vol. xi), pp. 7-12. Thomson was an importer
and also had interests in iron manufacturing and in rum distilling.
Harley, L. R. , Life of Charles Thomson (Philadelphia, 1900), passim.
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? ejb * THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
to every man in the least acquainted with it to be much
higher than that article can possibly bear and therefore must
operate as an absolute prohibition," declared Hopkins. If
the merchants and distillers suffered losses, the provincial
farmers would become deeply involved, because their surplus
stock and products had been sent to the foreign islands in
exchange for molasses. If there were no specie in cir-
culation, debts could not be paid to England, importations
must be reduced, and local manufacturing undertaken.
With the volume of money rapidly shrinking, it was charged
that the prohibition of further issues of legal-tender money
was calculated to heighten the distress, since paper money
had generally served a useful purpose as a circulating
medium within provincial boundaries. Finally, some
warmth was displayed in referring to the commercial sys-
tem as a whole, and the question asked whether the dis-
advantages which the colonies suffered under it and the en-
hanced prices which the colonists paid for British importa-
tions loaded with British taxes at home were not equivalent
to a tax directly levied in America.
The assumptions and arguments, urged by the pamph-
leteers, received substantial confirmation from the prostra-
tion of industry which began to be apparent throughout the
commercial provinces.