1765]

Resistance to the Stamp Act

149

received in America with an outburst of indignation, for which the government was wholly unprepared. Resistance was immediate and general. The official stamp-distributors were in some cases burnt in effigy, in others forced to resign. At Boston the mob, regardless of the long public services of Hutchinson and of his opposition to the Stamp Act, and only remembering that he was now endeavouring to check their violence, sacked and destroyed his house and with it an invaluable collection of historical books and papers. This outrage was perpetrated under the eyes of a number of magistrates. Similar outbreaks took place elsewhere. In Rhode Island three chief supporters of government had their houses sacked, and the revenue officers went in danger of their lives. Disturbances also took place in New York, in Connecticut, and in Philadelphia. The general line, however, taken by responsible men in the colonies was that the measure, though unwise and injurious, was not unconstitutional. Such was the view expressed by Otis, who was regarded as the leader of the popular party in Massachusetts. Franklin consented to assist the British government in its choice of a stampcollector for Pennsylvania.

The first sign of constitutional opposition came from Virginia. In the Assembly of that colony, Patrick Henry, already noted for his attack on the clergy, brought forward and carried a series of resolutions hostile to the Act. The vital resolution, in which the whole force of his position lay, was the last, which affirmed "that the General Assembly of this colony have the only sole and exclusive right and power to lay taxes and impositions upon the inhabitants of this colony." But the most important feature of the whole struggle was the fact that it threw the colonies into an attitude of united opposition. In all previous disputes each colony had fought its own battle. Now delegates from nine out of the thirteen colonies met in congress at New York to protest against the Stamp Act (October 7, 1765). Only New Hampshire, Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia were unrepresented. A declaration of grievances was drafted, and memorials were sent to the King and to the two Houses of Parliament, claiming the right of self-taxation.

Next session the Ministry to which Grenville belonged were forced to leave office, not in any way on account of their colonial policy, but because their attitude on the question of a possible regency was distasteful to the King. The incoming Prime Minister was Lord Rockingham. There can be no doubt that neither the Ministry which introduced the Stamp Act nor the Parliament which passed it, and still less the country at large, had in the least foreseen the storm of indignation with which that measure was received in America. To undo the mischief was the task which the new Ministry set themselves. Rockingham himself was a man of no originality or eloquence, but he was sensible, disinterested, and courageous. His policy and that of his party was largely inspired by his private secretary, Edmund Burke.

150

Repeal of the Stamp Act

[1766

The interest which Burke took in the colonies he had already shown by publishing the best comprehensive account of them then extant; and he approached the whole question of colonial administration with a sympathetic interest and a detailed knowledge hardly to be found in any other public man in England. His party, too, were on friendly

terms with that small section of independent members who had opposed the Stamp Act. Pitt, who had been incapacitated by illness. when the Stamp Act passed, reappeared. At the opening of the session the Ministry laid before Parliament all the papers touching the disturbances which had taken place in America. Pitt at once advocated the immediate and total repeal of the Stamp Act; but his support of the government was given with such reservations that it did little to strengthen the general position of the Ministry. Confidence, he said, was a plant of slow growth in an aged bosom; and he could still detect traces of an over-ruling influence, that no doubt of Bute or the King himself. The reference to age in a man under sixty had that histrionic touch which so often marred the greatness of Pitt; and it showed a strange lack of practical discernment not to see that he needed allies, and that to discredit the Rockingham Whigs was to forfeit his one possible alliance.

Half-hearted though his aid was, it sufficed to enable the Ministry to carry the repeal of the Stamp Act (February 22). Far, however, from abandoning the general principle of a right to tax the colonies, they passed a Declaratory Act affirming that right. The wisdom of this step has been a matter of no little discussion. On the one hand it was said that by this measure the boon of repeal was stripped of half its value. On the other hand it might be urged that the action of the colonies had made it impossible to ignore the question, and that to refrain from making any such declaration was virtually to abandon wholly the right at any time to tax the colonies. Future events showed that such an abandonment would have been the wiser policy. But if the Ministry are to be blamed for want of foresight, the blame must be shared by almost every responsible politician of that day.

One noteworthy feature of the debate was that Franklin was called to the bar of the House of Commons and examined as an expert on colonial politics. That showed a desire to understand and propitiate American opinion which was an entirely new feature in colonial administration. Franklin averred that the recognised doctrine among the colonists was that the mother-country had a right to control trade and to impose such duties as might be necessary for that purpose. What they denied, according to him, was the right to levy internal taxation. He did not, however, contend, as did some advocates of the colonial cause, that this was a necessary distinction, based on some immutable law of natural rights.

Questions were addressed to Franklin with the object of obtaining

1766]

The views of Franklin

151

an admission that the tax was only designed to lay on the colonies a fair share of the charges of the late war. These he answered by declaring that the war was fought to secure the Indian trade, which was a British rather than a colonial interest; and that "the people of America made no scruple of contributing their utmost towards carrying it on." No one knew better than Franklin that it had proved impossible to induce the provincial assemblies, notably that of his own State, Pennsylvania, to bear anything like a due share in the cost of the war; while the frequency of border raids and the imminent danger of an invasion by French and Indians combined was a sufficient answer to the contention that the colonists themselves were not directly interested in the issue of the conflict. But through his whole public career it was characteristic of Franklin to be at once temperate in the tone and unscrupulous in the substance of his arguments.

One may doubt, too, whether he was thoroughly convinced of what he asserted with full confidence, namely, the capacity of the colonists to manufacture for themselves and so to become independent of British imports. That might be possible as a temporary measure of retaliation: it was almost certain that, if it were attempted for any length of time, the force of natural conditions would reassert itself. One significant statement was made by Franklin. He was asked whether the repeal of the Stamp Act would induce the colonists to acknowledge the right of Parliament to tax them and to erase their resolutions of protest. His answer was that nothing could change their opinions, and that only force could induce them to rescind their resolutions.

That answer really expressed the truth that the repeal of the Act, though in itself a wise measure, could not put things back where they were before the Act passed. The colonists had been led to formulate. definitely views which hitherto they had held but vaguely; and behind the resistance to taxation, which was gradually taking shape, if there was not as yet a conscious desire for independence, there were the elements out of which such a desire would quickly and easily spring. Young men like James Warren of Boston were coming under the dominion of those abstract theories of human rights which were soon to convulse and transform Europe. And this sentiment was neither allowed to evaporate in mere rhetoric or in childish mock-treason, nor left to smoulder beneath the surface, inactive and unemployed. In such men as Patrick Henry and John Adams we find that abstract theories, lending themselves to rhetorical treatment, were combined with a clear grasp of facts and a sound practical judgment as to the details of policy.

It is hardly an exaggeration to say that the whole history of the relations between the mother-country and the colonies, from the repeal of the Stamp Act to the Declaration of Independence, was one series of disputes, often insignificant in themselves, but rendered dangerous by

152

Townshend's tea-duties

[1766ignorance and hesitation in the rulers, by persistent and dexterous agitation on the part of the subjects. In most of these disputes. Massachusetts was the battle-field. But, in 1767, the legislature of New York incurred the displeasure of the Ministry by refusing to comply with the Mutiny Act by providing the King's troops with quarters and certain necessaries. This act of disobedience was punished by the suspension of the legislature, a procedure of which the policy and the constitutional propriety might alike be doubted. New York, however, showed no tenacious adhesion to constitutional rights like that which distinguished Massachusetts; and the Assembly, thus pressed, gave way.

In July, 1766, the Rockingham Ministry had fallen, a result largely due to the covert opposition of the King. Then followed a most unhappy state of affairs, when Chatham was nominally Prime Minister, but was so incapacitated by suppressed gout that he could take no part in public business, still less exercise any control over his illarranged and discordant Cabinet. If Chatham's acting lieutenant, Grafton, had but possessed sufficient force of will and fixity of purpose to control his colleagues, all might have gone well. Grafton was imbued with a genuine respect for old Whig principles and with a generous loyalty towards his absent chief; but his influence was fatally undermined by the looseness of his private life and by his incapacity for continuous application. The result was that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Charles Townshend, had virtually a free hand in the questions of colonial taxation. He had been a member of the Cabinet with Grenville, and had supported his colonial policy. That alone would have made him an object of suspicion to the Americans and their friends. Not only were his views out of harmony with those of Chatham, but he made no secret of his contempt for Chatham's authority. In 1767 he introduced and carried through Parliament a bill imposing duties on tea and other commodities when imported into the colonies. In thus taxing colonial trade the Ministry were not introducing any new principle. But the proceeds were to be employed in making an American civil list; and, as we have seen, Massachusetts had continuously and successfully resisted every attempt to make colonial officials directly dependent on the home government. Moreover, a measure which at another time might have gone almost unnoticed was sure to be resented when colonial feeling was still sore from the effect of the Stamp Act and the Declaratory Act.

Massachusetts at once met this new attack on colonial liberty, as it had met the Stamp Act, by an appeal to the whole body of colonies. A circular letter was drawn up by the Assembly of Massachusetts and sent to each colony. Thereupon Lord Hillsborough, the Secretary of State, sent instructions to Bernard, the Governor of Massachusetts, to dissolve the Assembly unless it would withdraw the circular letters. This they refused to do, and Bernard thereupon dissolved them. They

-1770]

Disaffection in Massachusetts

153

continued, however, to sit as a convention, having indeed no legal status but being equally effective, possibly for that very reason more effective, as a means of expressing and guiding popular feeling.

At the same time other events took place at Boston, not important in themselves, but acting as irritants in an already morbid condition of affairs. A sloop named the Liberty, belonging to John Hancock, a leading merchant in Boston, who afterwards played a somewhat conspicuous part in the Revolution, was seized by the Custom House officers, on the ground that her master had landed a cargo of Madeira wine, declaring and paying duty only on a portion of it. To prevent a rescue, the sloop was anchored close to a King's ship, the Romney, which was in the harbour. A riot followed in which the Custom House officers were maltreated. The select-men of the town then summoned a meeting. The meeting, with a dexterity which marked these proceedings throughout, avoided expressing direct approval of the rioters, but passed resolutions declaring that taxes had been imposed unconstitutionally and payment enforced by armed violence, and they petitioned for the removal of the man-of-war. There could hardly have been a better instance of the act of fostering a spirit of lawlessness. while avoiding responsibility for any breach of law. Nor did the governor feel himself strong enough to make any attempt at bringing the rioters to justice.

This was not the only open and successful defiance of authority. In July, 1768, Lord Hillsborough, alarmed by the reports which Governor Bernard sent home, ordered two regiments to be sent from Halifax to Boston. Bernard claimed the right to quarter the troops in the town. The Council, of which a majority was now hostile to the governor, declared that quartering troops on private citizens was only allowed when there was no barrack accommodation. The difficulty was got over, not by forcing the troops on the inhabitants, but by hiring quarters. The arrangement was no doubt in the interests of peace; but there remained the fact that the authority of government had been successfully defied.

As we have seen, the Assembly, though deprived of legal power, continued to sit as a convention. On the transparently false plea of a possible French invasion, the town-meeting passed a resolution requesting all inhabitants to furnish themselves with fire-arms. It is even said that Otis and others went so far as to collect a supply of arms ready for distribution. It is hardly too much to say that the town of Boston, without formally throwing off the authority of the Crown, was building up a de facto government which, for all practical purposes, superseded that which existed de jure.

On the 3rd of March, 1770, took place that incident called, with somewhat grotesque magniloquence, the Boston Massacre. Various displays of ill-feeling between the townsmen and the soldiers culminated