Loyalty of the Colonies—Repression of Their Industries—Prevalence of Smuggling—Attempts to Stop It—Plans to Tax the Colonies—The Stamp Tax—Resistance of the Americans—Its Repeal—The Tax on Tea—Troops Sent to Boston—The "Boston Massacre"—The "Boston Tea Party"—Boston Punished—Sentiment of Rebellion—Preparation for War—The Verge of Revolution.
IN 1763 the war between the French and English colonies in America ended, leaving the English lords of the continent and the colonists loyal subjects of Great Britain. In 1775, twelve years afterwards, this loyalty had disappeared, the colonies were in open rebellion, and the first shots in the war for independence had been heard. What had caused so great a change? How had these hosts of loyal subjects been converted so quickly into rebels? This is one of the most important problems in American history, and the one with which we are now concerned.
Tho the colonists had been loyal, they had not been satisfied. England had dealt with her sons beyond the seas in the medieval method of dealing with colonies. It was held to be the first duty of colonists to feed the mother country, their second to feed themselves. They were children, and must show the obedience of the child. Politically they had much freedom, but industrially they were held in close subjection. It was their mission to till the ground, to cut timber from their forests, to lift ore from their mines, and send all material not needed at home to British ports. To deal with any other nation was a crime. On the other hand, they must buy the products of British forges and factories, and not venture to make anything beyond the simplest necessaries for themselves. Such was the theory of colonial duty held in Great Britain. It worked fairly well while the colonies were infants. It failed to fit the case when they became lusty youths.
As the Americans grew strong in number, they found themselves encumbered by a suit of medieval garments much too small for their swelling limbs. It was felt to be oppressive that they could not convert their own raw material into useful goods, and that they could not send their ships to what ports they pleased. In truth, they were not held by laws made for them in England. The shipping interests of New England grew large, and these colonies openly violated the regulations made for them beyond the seas. Smuggling became common. Colonial ships made their way to European ports, and an active trade sprang up with the Spanish and French West Indies. The lumber and fish of New England were conveyed to these islands, and sugar, rum, molasses, and other products were brought back, in daring disregard of the edicts of Parliament and the Crown.
Such was the state of affairs in 1760, in which year George II. died, and George III. came to the throne. Smuggling was then openly practiced, and little effort was made to stop it. But with the new king came a new policy. This monarch decided to make the colonies bend to his will. As a result, in twenty years of rule he succeeded in losing the fairest jewel in the English crown, the great American domain.
In 1761 the trouble began. The decree went out that smuggling must be stopped. Ships of war were sent to American waters to watch for vessels engaged in this illicit trade. The custom-house officers of American ports were instructed to take severe measures in the performance of their duty. To aid them a stringent excise law was passed. They were given the power to issue "writs of assistance," under which they had the right to enter any house they chose, and ransack it from garret to cellar in search of smuggled goods. These writs differed materially from a regular search warrant, issued by a magistrate on information lodged before him, and limited to well-defined purposes. They were blanks which the custom-house officer might fill in with any name he pleased, and with which he was free to gratify private malice as well as to perform public service.
Under such a law no liberty could exist. The theory that "every man's house is his castle" was set aside. The edict was looked upon as an act of tyranny, and as such its execution was resisted and defied. Disputes and hot feeling became common. Warehouses and dwellings were entered by force, and goods were seized which the officers claimed to be smuggled. The "writs of assistance" failed to bring smuggling to an end, but they served as the first wedge in the work of separating the colonies from the motherland.
But this measure produced its effect only in the ports of the country, and particularly in Boston, where smuggling was most active. To produce a general feeling of disloyalty, a measure that affected all the people was needed. It soon came. The war with the French which had just closed, was an expensive one. It had added considerably to the public debt of Great Britain, and there arose a feeling that the colonies ought to pay the expense of their defense. The individual action of the colonies was felt to be a poor dependence in times of need. Some kind of general government was required. Taxes must be raised, soldiers enlisted, and other necessary steps taken. But the colonies resisted union. Franklin's plan of confederacy, offered at the Albany Convention, had been rejected. Each colony had a jealous fear of giving up any of its privileges, and yielding to any central authority. In this emergency the British Government undertook to supply the want. It was decided to furnish the colonies with a small army of British regulars, not less than 10,000 men, for their defense. But Parliament held it to be only proper that the colonies should pay for the support of this army, and it was decided to raise the money for this purpose by a tax on the people.
This was very well in its way. Had the colonies been asked to tax themselves for their own defense little or no objection would have been made. But the British Government decided that the right of taxing its distant subjects lay in its own hands, and to this very serious objection was made. The colonists had governed themselves too long to be thus dealt with. They were not represented in the British Parliament. For centuries the subjects of Great Britain had refused to be taxed except by their own representatives. The colonists claimed the same right. On this the whole edifice of British liberty rested, and, as free-born Britons, they sternly refused to be robbed of their birthright. If Parliament could tax America for colonial aid, it could do so for colonial oppression. If soldiers could be sent for defense, they could be sent for the purposes of tyranny. The very wind of what was afoot sent a strong wave of adverse feeling throughout the colonies. Parliament was well aware that the measure would be opposed. But the king and his ministers had decided that the colonists must be taxed, and the bill was carried through. Benjamin Franklin, who was in London at the time sought earnestly to stop it, but, as he said, he might as well have tried to stop the sun from setting.
To save trouble, it was decided that the simplest and easiest way of raising the money required would be by a stamp tax. Stamps of various cost, ranging in value from a halfpenny to ten pounds, were to be placed on all legal documents, commercial papers, etc. In this way it was felt that paying of the money would hardly be felt by the people at large, and the government would quietly gain its end. The advocates of this neat plan did not know what a hornet's nest they were meddling with. The news of the passage of the bill sent a flame of excitement from New Hampshire to Georgia. The cry of "No taxation without representation" arose in all directions. Spoken by such leaders as Samuel Adams and James Otis, it was taken up by the people and became the slogan of all liberty-loving colonies. Delegates from nine of the colonies met in New York to protest against a tax not of their own making, and sent a remonstrance to England denying the right of Parliament to tax Americans. The same denial was made by Patrick Henry, an eminent Virginian, in ringing tones. He asserted in the plainest language that George III. was playing the tyrant, and warned him not to go too far.
"Cæsar had his Brutus," he thundered to the frightened legislators of Virginia; "Charles the First his Cromwell; and George the Third"—
"Treason, treason," cried some king-fearing members.
"May profit by their example," continued the daring orator. "If this be treason, make the most of it."
"This law will be resisted to blood and to death," said John Aske, speaker of the Assembly of North Carolina.
The feeling thus strongly expressed was everywhere entertained, and displayed itself in many places by acts instead of words. Associations, calling themselves "Sons of Liberty," were formed, their purpose being to resist the law. Prominent British officials were hung in effigy, and in some places their houses were rifled or pulled down. Violent mobs forced the stamp officers to resign. When the stamps arrived, all that the people could lay their hands on were destroyed. The first of November, 1765, the day on which the law was to go into effect, was kept as a day of mourning, the bells being tolled, the flags hung at half-mast, and all business suspended. The law was from the start a dead letter. Not a stamp was used. No one dared offer for sale a piece of stamped paper. Lawyers agreed to accept unstamped documents as legal. Newspaper editors printed on their sheets a skull and cross-bones in place of the hated stamps. The excitement went further than this, and seriously affected all British trade. Merchants pledged themselves to import no English goods until the stamp act was repealed. The people ceased to wear black at funerals, since all black goods came from England. Homespun began generally to replace imported cloth. The colonists even resolved to eat no more mutton, that they might raise more wool for weaving.
Here was a storm on which the lawmakers of England had not counted. Loyalty in America was verging toward rebellion. In 1766, as no one would buy the stamps, the law was repealed by Parliament, after a long and stormy debate. But the principle on which it had been based was retained. The right of British Government to tax America when and how it chose was still asserted, and in the next year a new scheme of taxation was devised. A law was passed to levy duty on tea, glass, paper, and some other articles entering American ports. The money raised was to be used to keep up a small army in America, to pay British officials who had before been paid by the assemblies, and for some other purposes.