Читать книгу The Wars Between England and America - Theodore Clarke Smith - Страница 6

The Prime Minister responsible for the new colonial policy was George Grenville, who assumed his position in May, 1763, shortly after the final treaty of Paris. Every other member of his Cabinet was a nobleman, Grenville himself was brother of an earl, and most of them had had places in preceding Ministries. It was a typical administration of the period, completely aristocratic in membership and spirit, quite indifferent to colonial views, and incapable of comprehending colonial ideals even if they had known them. To them the business in hand was a purely practical one; and with confident energy Grenville pushed through a series of measures, which had been carefully worked out, of course, by minor officials unknown to fame, during the preceding months, {29} but which were destined to produce results undreamed of by any one in England.

In the first place, there were a number of measures to strengthen and revivify the Acts of Trade. Colonists were given new privileges in the whale fishery, hides and skins were "enumerated," and steps were taken to secure a more rigorous execution of the Acts by the employment of naval vessels against smuggling. A new Sugar Act reduced the tariff on foreign sugar to such a point that it would be heavily protective without being prohibitive, and at the same time imposed special duties on Portuguese wines, while providing additional machinery for collecting customs. This was clearly aimed at the weak point in the existing navigation system; but it introduced a new feature, for the sugar duties, unlike previous ones, were intended to raise a revenue, and this, it was provided in the Act, should be used to pay for the defence of America.

A second new policy was inaugurated in a proclamation of October, 1763, which made Florida and Canada despotically governed provinces, and set off all the land west of the head-waters of the rivers running into the Atlantic as an Indian reservation. No further land grants were to be made in that region, nor was any trade to be permitted with the Indians save by royal licence. The {30} Imperial government thus assumed control of Indian policy, and endeavoured to check any further growth of the existing communities to the West. Such a scheme necessitated the creation of a royal standing army in America on a larger scale than the previous garrisons; and this plan led to the third branch of the new policy, which contemplated the positive interposition of Parliament to remedy the shortcomings of colonial assemblies. An Act of 1764 prohibited the future issue of any paper money by any colony, thus terminating one of the chief grievances of British governors and merchants. But still more striking was an Act of 1765, which provided with great elaboration for the collection of a stamp tax in the colonies upon all legal documents, newspapers, and pamphlets. The proceeds were to be used to pay about one-third of the cost of the new standing army, which was to consist of ten thousand men. Taken in connection with the announced intention of using the revenue from the Sugar Act for the same purpose, it is obvious that Grenville's measures were meant to relieve the Imperial government from the necessity of depending in future upon the erratic and unmanageable colonial legislatures. They were parts of a general political and financial programme. There is not the slightest evidence that Grenville or his associates dreamed {31} that they were in any way affecting the colonists' rights or restricting their liberties. Grenville did consult the colonial agents—individuals authorized to represent the colonial assemblies in England—but simply with a view to meeting practical objections. The various proclamations or orders were issued without opposition, and the bills passed Parliament almost unnoticed. The British governing class was but slightly concerned with colonial reform: the Board of Trade, the colonial officials, and the responsible Ministers were the only people interested.

To the astonishment of the Cabinet and of the English public, the new measures, especially the Sugar Act and the Stamp Act, raised a storm of opposition in the colonies unlike anything in their history. The reasons are obvious. If the new Sugar Act was to be enforced, it meant the end of the flourishing French West India intercourse and the death of the "triangular" trade. Every distiller, shipowner, and exporter of fish, timber, or grain, felt himself threatened with ruin. If the Stamp Act were enforced, it meant the collection of a tax from communities already in debt from the French wars, which were in future to be denied the facile escape from heavy taxes hitherto afforded by bills of credit. But the economic burdens threatened were almost lost sight of in the political {32} dangers. If England meant to impose taxes by parliamentary vote for military purposes, instead of calling upon the colonists to furnish money and men, it meant a deadly blow to the importance of the assemblies. They could no longer exercise complete control over their property and their finances. They would sink to the status of mere municipal bodies. So far as the Americans of 1765 were concerned, the feeling was universal that such a change was intolerable, that if they ceased to have the full power to give or withhold taxes at their discretion they were practically slaves.

In every colony there sprang to the front leaders who voiced these sentiments in impassioned speeches and pamphlets; for the most part young men, many of them lawyers accustomed to look for popular approval in resisting royal governors. Such men as James Otis and Samuel Adams in Massachusetts, William Livingston in New York, Patrick Henry in Virginia, Christopher Gadsden in South Carolina denounced the Stamp Act as tyrannous, unconstitutional, and an infringement of the liberties of the colonists. Popular anger rose steadily until, in the autumn, when the stamps arrived, the people of the thirteen colonies had nerved themselves to the pitch of refusing to obey the Act. Under pressure from crowds of angry men, {33} every distributor was compelled to resign, the stamps were in some cases destroyed, and in Boston the houses of unpopular officials were mobbed and sacked. Before the excitement, the governors stood utterly helpless. They could do nothing to carry out the Act.

In October, delegates representing nearly all the colonies met at New York, and drafted resolutions expressing their firm belief that no tax could legally be levied upon them but by their own consent, given through their legislatures. It was the right of Englishmen not to be taxed without their consent. Petitions in respectful but determined language were sent to the King and to Parliament, praying for the repeal of the Stamp Act and the Sugar Act. For the first time in their history, the colonies stood together in full harmony to denounce and reject an Act passed by Parliament. As a social and political fact, this unanimous demonstration of colonial feeling was of profound significance. The ease and ability with which the lawyers, planters, farmers, or merchants directed the popular excitement into effective channels showed the widespread political education of the Americans. A not dissimilar excitement in London in the same years found no other means of expressing itself than bloody rioting. It was American {34} republicanism showing its strongest aspect in political resistance.

The issue thus presented to the British government was one demanding the most careful consideration and far-seeing wisdom in its treatment. Grenville's measures, however admirable and reasonable in themselves, had stirred the bitter opposition of all the colonists, and the enforcement or modification of them called for steadiness and courage. Were the English governing noblemen of the day ready to persist in the new policy? If so, it meant violent controversy and possibly colonial insurrection; but the exertion of British authority, if coupled with strong naval pressure, ought to prevail. Angry as the colonists were, their language indicates that revolution was not in their thoughts; and, if there was one quality beyond all others in which the British aristocracy excelled, it was an inflexible tenacity when once a policy was definitely embraced. Unfortunately for both sides, the clear-cut issue thus raised was obscured and distorted by the presence on the throne of an ambitious young prince with a policy which threw British domestic affairs into unexampled confusion.

George III, obstinate, narrow-minded, and determined to make his own will felt in the choice of Ministers and the direction of affairs, had succeeded his grandfather in 1760. Too {35} astute to violate the fast-bound tradition of the British constitution that he must govern only through Ministers, he saw that to have his own way he must secure political servants who, while acting as Cabinet Ministers, should take their orders from him. He also saw that to destroy the hold of the Whig family cliques he must enter politics himself and buy, intimidate, and cajole in order to win a following for his Ministers in parliament. With this ideal in view, he subordinated all other considerations to the single one of getting subservient Ministers, and fought or intrigued against any Cabinet which did not accept his direction, until, in 1770, he finally triumphed. In the meantime he had kept England under a fluctuating succession of Ministries which forbade the maintenance of any coherent or authoritative colonial policy such as alone could have prevented disaster.

In 1761 George III tried to induce Parliament to accept the leadership of the Earl of Bute, his former tutor, who had never held public office; but his rapid rise to the Premiership aroused such jealousy among the nobility and such unpopularity among the people that the unfortunate Scot quailed before the storm of ridicule and abuse. He resigned in 1763, and was succeeded by Grenville, who instantly showed George III that he would take no dictation. On the contrary, {36} he drove the King to the point of fury by his masterfulness. In desperation, George then turned to the Marquis of Rockingham who, if equally determined to decline royal dictation, was personally less offensive to him; and there came in a Ministry of the usual type, all noblemen but two minor members, and all belonging to "connections" different from those of the Grenville Ministry. Thus it was that, when the unanimous defiance of the Americans reached England, the Ministers responsible for the colonial reforms were out of office, and the Rockingham Whigs had assumed control, feeling no obligation to continue anything begun by their predecessors. George III's interposition was responsible for this situation.

When Parliament met in January, 1766, the colonists received powerful allies, first in the British merchants, who petitioned against the Act as causing the practical stoppage of American purchases, and second in William Pitt, who, in a burning speech, embraced in full the colonists' position, and declared that a parliamentary tax upon the plantations was absolutely contrary to the rights of Englishmen. He "rejoiced that America has resisted." This radical position found few followers; but the Whig Ministry, after some hesitation, decided to grant the colonial demands while insisting {37} on the imperial rights of Parliament. This characteristically English action was highly distasteful to the majority in the House of Lords, who voted to execute the law, and to George III, who disliked to yield to mutinous subjects; but they were forced to give way. The Stamp Act was repealed, and the sugar duties were reduced to a low figure. At the same time a Declaratory Act was passed, asserting that Parliament had full power to bind the colonies "in all cases whatsoever." Thus the Americans had their way in part, while submitting to seeing their arguments rejected.

The consequences of this unfortunate affair were to bring into sharp contrast the British and the American views of the status of the colonies. The former considered them as parts of the realm, subject like any other part to the legislative authority of King, Lords, and Commons. The contention of the colonists, arising naturally from the true situation in each colonial government, that the rights of Englishmen guaranteed their freedom from taxation without representation, was answered by the perfectly sound legal assertion that the colonists, like all the people of England, were "virtually" represented in the House of Commons. The words, in short, meant one thing in England, another thing in America. English speakers {38} and writers pointed to the scores of statutes affecting the colonies, calling attention especially to the export duties of the Navigation Act of 1672, and the import duties of the Act of 1733, not to mention its revision of 1764. Further, Parliament had regulated provincial coinage and money, had set up a postal service, and established rates. Although Parliament had not imposed any such tax as the Stamp Act, it had, so far as precedent showed, exercised financial powers on many occasions.

To meet the British appeal to history, the colonists developed the theory that commercial regulation, including the imposition of customs duties, was "external" and hence lay naturally within the scope of imperial legislation, but that "internal" taxation was necessarily in the hands of the colonial assemblies. There was sufficient plausibility in this claim to commend it to Pitt, who adopted it in his speeches, and to Benjamin Franklin, the agent for Pennsylvania, already well known as a "philosopher," who expounded it confidently when he was examined as an expert on American affairs at the bar of the Commons. It was, however, without any clear legal justification, and, as English speakers kept pointing out, it was wholly incompatible with the existence of a genuine imperial government. That it was {39} a perfectly practical distinction, in keeping with English customs, was also true; but that was not to be realized until three-quarters of a century later.

With the repeal of the objectionable law the uproar in America ceased, and, amid profuse expressions of gratitude to Pitt, the Ministry, and the King, the colonists returned to their normal activities. The other parts of the Grenville programme were not altered, and it was now possible for English Ministers, by a wise and steady policy, to improve the weak spots in the colonial system without giving undue offence to a population whose sensitiveness and obstinate devotion to entire self-government had been so powerfully shown. Unfortunately, the King again interposed his influence in such wise as to prevent any rational colonial policy. In the summer of 1766, tiring of the Rockingham Ministry, he managed to bring together an odd coalition of political groups under the nominal headship of the Duke of Grafton. Pitt, who disliked the family cliques, accepted office and the title of Earl of Chatham, hoping to lead a national Ministry. The other elements were in part Whig, and in part representatives of the so-called "King's Friends"—a growing body of more or less venal politicians who clung to George's support for the sake of the patronage to be {40} gained—and several genuine Tories who looked to a revived royal power to end the Whig monopoly. From such a Cabinet no consistent policy was to be expected, save under leadership of a man like Pitt. Unfortunately the latter was immediately taken with an illness which kept him out of public life for two years; and Grafton, the nominal Prime Minister, was utterly unable to hold his own against the influence and intrigues of the King. From the start, accordingly, the Ministry proved weak and unstable, and it allowed a new set of colonial quarrels to develop.

Charles Townshend, Chancellor of the Exchequer, one of the originators of the new colonial policy under the Bute Ministry, was so ill-advised as to renew the attempt to raise a colonial revenue by parliamentary taxation. His manner of proposing the measure gave the impression that it was a piece of sheer bravado on his part, intended to regain the prestige which he had lost by failing to carry all of his first budget; but the nature of the scheme indicates its close connection with the Grenville ideals. Avoiding the appearance of a direct internal tax, he caused the imposition of duties on glass, painters' colours, paper, and tea, without any pretence of regulating commerce, but for the announced purpose of defraying the expenses {41} of governors and judges in the colonies. Another measure established an American Board of Commissioners for customs. Still another punished the province of New York for failing to comply with an Act of 1765 authorizing quartering of troops in the colonies. The assembly was forbidden to pass any law until it should make provision for the soldiers in question. Ex-governor Pownall of Massachusetts, now in Parliament, did not fail to warn the House of the danger into which it was running; but his words were unheeded, and the Bills passed promptly.

The result of these measures was inevitable. Every political leader in the colonies—nay, every voter—saw that the Townshend duties, while in form "external," were pure revenue measures, unconnected with the Acts of Trade, and intended to strike at colonial independence in a vital point. If Great Britain undertook henceforward to pay the salaries of royal officials, one of the principal sources of power would be taken away from the assemblies. Instantly the distinction of "external" and "internal" taxation was abandoned; and from end to end of the Atlantic seaboard a cry went up that the duties were an insidious attack on the liberties of the Americans, an outrageous taking of their property without their consent, and a wanton interference with their {42} governments. Not merely agitators such as the shrewd Samuel Adams and the eloquent Patrick Henry uttered these views, but men of far more considerable property and station—such as John Jay and New York landowners and importers, John Dickinson and the Philadelphia merchants, George Washington and the Virginia planters. While no general Congress was summoned, the legislatures of the colonies adopted elaborate resolutions, pamphleteers issued a stream of denunciations, and, most important of all, a concerted effort was made to break down the Acts by abstaining from any importations, not only of the taxed commodities, but, so far as possible, of any British products. Commercial boycott, it was hoped, would have the same effect as at the time of the Stamp Act.

By this time the colonial argument had come to assume a much broader character, for, in order to deny the validity of the New York Assembly Act and the Townshend duties, it became necessary to assert that Parliament, according to "natural rights," had no legislative authority over the internal affairs of a colony. This was vested, by the constitution of each province or chartered colony, in the Crown and the colonial legislature. Such a theory reduced the imperial tie to little more than a personal union through the monarch, coupled with the {43} admitted power of Parliament to regulate commerce and navigation. Evidently, as in all such cases, the theory was framed to justify a particular desire, namely, to keep things where they had been prior to 1763. The sole question at issue was, in reality, one of power, not of abstract or legal right. Once more it was clear to men of penetrating vision that the American colonies needed extremely careful handling. Whether their arguments were sound or fallacious, loyal or seditious, it was significant that the whole continent spoke with one voice and felt but one desire—to be allowed to exercise complete financial discretion and to retain full control over governors and judges. Unfortunately the condition of things in England was such that a cool or steady treatment of the question was becoming impossible. In the first place, the Grafton Ministry was reconstituted in 1768, the "Pittite" elements withdrawing, and being replaced by more King's Friends and Tories, while George III's influence grew predominant. Townshend died in September, 1767, but his place was taken by Lord North, a Tory and especially subservient to the King. A new secretaryship for the colonies was given to Lord Hillsborough, who had been in the Board of Trade in the Grenville Ministry, and represented his views. Neither of these {44} men was inclined to consider colonial clamour in any other light than as unpardonable impudence and sedition. In the second place, the old Whig family groups were fast assuming an attitude of bitter opposition to the new Tories, and by 1768 were prepared to use the American question as a convenient weapon to discredit the Ministry. They were quite as aristocratic in temper as the ministerial party, but advocated forbearance, conciliation, and calmness in dealing with the Americans, in speeches as remarkable for their political good sense as for their ferocity toward North, Hillsborough, and the rest. While the Ministry drew its views of the American situation from royal governors and officials, the Whigs habitually consulted with Franklin and the other colonial agents, who occupied a quasi-diplomatic position. Thus the American question became a partisan battleground. The Tories, attacked by the Whigs, developed a stubborn obstinacy in holding to a "firm" colonial policy, and exhibited a steady contempt and anger toward their American adversaries which was in no small degree due to the English party antagonism.

Still further to confuse the situation, there occurred at this time the contest of John Wilkes, backed by the London mob, against the Grafton Ministry. This demagogue, able {45} and profligate, had already come into conflict with the Grenville Ministry in 1765, and had been driven into exile. Now, in 1768, he returned and was repeatedly elected to the Commons, and as often unseated by the vindictive ministerial majority. Riots and bloodshed accompanied the agitation; and Wilkes and his supporters, backed by the parliamentary Whigs, habitually proclaimed the same doctrines of natural rights which were universally asserted in America. To the King and his Cabinet, Wilkes and the American leaders appeared indistinguishable. They were all brawling, disorderly, and dangerous demagogues, deserving of no consideration.

Under these circumstances, the complaints of the colonists, although supported by the Whigs and by Chatham, received scant courtesy in England. The Grafton Ministry showed nothing but an irritated intention to maintain imperial supremacy by insisting on the taxes and demanding submissiveness on the part of the assemblies. A series of "firm" instructions was sent out by Hillsborough, typical of which was an order that the Massachusetts legislature must rescind its circular letter of protest under threat of dissolution, and that the other assemblies must repudiate the letter under a similar menace. The sole result was a series of embittered wrangles, dissolutions, protests, {46} and quarrels which left the colonists still more inflamed. Then, at the suggestion of the Commissioners of Customs, two regiments of troops were sent to Boston to over-awe that particularly defiant colony. There being no legislature in session, the Massachusetts towns sent delegates to a voluntary convention which drafted a protest. Immediately, this action was denounced by Hillsborough as seditious and was censured by Parliament; while the Duke of Bedford moved that an old statute of Henry VIII, by which offenders outside the realm could be brought to England for trial, should be put into operation against the colonial agitators. When the Virginia legislature protested against this step, it was dissolved. Hillsborough and North acted as though they believed that a policy of scolding and nagging, if made sufficiently disagreeable, would bring the colonists to their senses. That the Whigs did not cease to pour contempt and ridicule on the folly of such behaviour was probably one reason why the government persisted in its course. The American question was coming to be beyond the reach of reason.

Yet in 1769 the Ministry could not avoid recognizing that as financial measures the Townshend duties were a hopeless failure, since their net proceeds were less than 300 pounds and the increased military expenses were {47} declared by Pownall to be over 170,000 pounds. On May 1, 1769, the Cabinet voted to repeal the taxes on glass, colours, and paper, but by a majority of one determined to keep the tea duty. This decision was due to the complaisance of Lord North, who saw the unwisdom of the step, but yielded to the King's wish to retain one tax in order to assert the principle of parliamentary supremacy. A year later, the Grafton Ministry finally broke up; and Lord North assumed control, with a Cabinet composed wholly of Tories and supported by George III to the full extent of his power, through patronage, bribes, social pressure, and political proscription. North himself was inclined to moderation in colonial matters. He carried the promised repeal of all the duties but the tea tax, and in 1772 replaced the arrogant and quarrelsome Hillsborough with the more amiable Lord Dartmouth. It looked for a while as though the political skies might clear, for the American merchants, tired of their self-imposed hardships, began to weaken in opposition. In 1769 the New York assembly voted to accept the parliamentary terms; and in 1770 the merchants of that colony voted to abandon general non-importation, keeping only the boycott on tea. This led to the general collapse of the non-importation agreements; but the colonial temper continued to be defiant and {48} suspicious, and wrangling with governors was incessant.

Occasional cases of violence confirmed the English Tories in their low view of the Americans. In March, 1770, a riot in Boston between town rowdies and the soldiers brought on a shooting affray in which five citizens were killed. This created intense indignation throughout the colonies, regardless of the provocation received by the soldiers, and led to an annual commemoration of the "Boston Massacre," marked by inflammatory speeches. The soldiers, however, when tried for murder in the local courts, were defended by prominent counsel, notably John Adams, and were acquitted. Two years later, on June 9, 1772, the Gaspee, a naval schooner, which had been very active in chasing smugglers in Rhode Island waters, was burned by a mob, and its captain taken prisoner. The utmost efforts of the home government failed to secure the detection or punishment of any one of the perpetrators.

Finally, in December, 1773, a still more serious explosion occurred. The North Ministry, desirous of assisting the East India Company, which was burdened with debt, removed practically all restrictions on the exportation of tea to America in hopes of increasing the sale by reducing the price. To the colonial leaders, now in a state of {49} chronic irritation, this measure seemed an insulting and insidious attempt to induce the Americans to forget their principles and buy the tea because it was cheap. It was denounced from end to end of the country in burning rhetoric; and when the cargoes of tea arrived their sale was completely prevented by the overwhelming pressure of public opinion. Consignees, waited on by great crowds, hastened to resign; and the tea was either seized for nonpayment of duties and allowed to spoil, or was sent back. In Boston, however, the Governor, Hutchinson, stiffly refused to let the tea ships depart without landing the tea, whereat the exasperated citizens watched an organized mob of disguised men board the ships and throw the tea into the harbour. Once more the unanimous voice of the colonies defied a parliamentary Act.

Such was the situation in 1773. Thirteen groups of British colonists, obstinately local in their interests, narrowly insistent on self-government, habituated to an antagonistic attitude toward royal governors, but, after all has been said, unquestionably loyal to the Crown and the home country, had been transformed into communities on the verge of permanent insubordination. Incapable of changing all their political habits, they could see in the British policy only a purpose {50} to deprive them of that self-government which was inseparable from liberty. The Crown Ministers, on the other hand, unable to discover anything illegal, oppressive, or unreasonable in any of their measures, found no explanation of the extravagant denunciations of the colonial radicals other than a determination to foment every possible difficulty with a view to throwing off all obedience. While Adams, Dickinson, Henry, Gadsden and the rest demanded their "rights," and protested against "incroachments" on their liberties, Bedford, Hillsborough, North, and Dartmouth insisted on the "indecency," "insolence," and "disloyalty" shown by the Americans. The colonial republicans and the British noblemen were unable to speak the same language. Yet the time had come to face the situation, and it was the duty of the Ministers to assume the task with something more serious than reproofs and legal formulae. The contest for power now begun must lead, unless terminated, straight to a disruption of the Empire.

{51}