Chapter 55

Writs of Assistance Issued--Excitement in Boston--The Stamp Act--Protests Against Taxation Without Representation--Massachusetts Appoints a Committee of Correspondence--Samuel Adams and Patrick Henry--Henry's Celebrated Resolutions--His Warning to King George--Growing Agitation in the Colonies--The Stamp Act Repealed--Parliament Levies Duties on Tea and Other Imports to America--Lord North's Choice of Infamy--Measures Of Resistance in America--The Massachusetts Circular Letter--British Troops in Boston--The Boston Massacre--Burning of the "Gaspee"--North Carolina "Regulators"--The Boston Tea Party--The Boston Port Bill--The First Continental Congress--A Declaration of Rights--"Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death!"

Even before peace had been made with France the king's officers in America began to enforce the revenue laws with a rigor to which the colonists had been unaccustomed. Charles Paxton, commissioner of customs in Boston, applied to the Superior Court for authority to use writs of assistance in searching for smuggled goods. These writs were warrants for the officers to search when and where they pleased and to call upon others to assist them, instead of procuring a special search-warrant for some designated place. Thomas Hutchinson, chief justice, and afterward royalist governor and refugee, favored the application, which was earnestly opposed by the merchants and the people generally.[1] "To my dying day," exclaimed James Otis, in pleading against the measure, "I will oppose with all the power and faculties God has given me, all such instruments of slavery on one hand and of villainy on the other." Parliament had authorized the issue of the writs, however, and the custom house officers therefore had the law on their side. Writs were granted, but their enforcement was attended with so many difficulties that the customs authorities virtually gave up this attempt to encroach upon the rights of the people. The next step in provoking the colonists to revolution was the Stamp Act. The object of this enactment was to raise money for the support of British troops and the payment of salaries to certain public officers in the colonies who had depended upon the colonial treasuries for their compensation. In this there was a threefold invasion of colonial rights. Taxation without representation was contrary to a principle recognized for centuries in England, vindicated in the revolution which cost Charles I his head, and upheld in America from the very beginning of the settlements here. Again, while British troops had been welcome as allies in battling against the French and the Indians, they were not desired as garrisons to overawe the free people of the colonies, and finally the colonial officers whom it was proposed to pay from the royal treasury would become the masters instead of servants of the people--or they would be servants only of the king. The purpose of the Stamp Act obviously was to make America the vassal of Great Britain. The act required that legal documents and commercial instruments should be written, and that newspapers should be printed on stamped paper.

[1] John Adams, in his letter to the President of Congress, July 17, 1780, attributes the outbreak of the Revolution to Hutchinson's course in this and other matters. "He was perhaps the only man in the world," wrote Adams, "who could have brought on the controversy between Great Britain and America in the manner and at the time it was done, and involved the two countries in an enmity which must end in their everlasting separation."

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The people everywhere protested against the tyrannical action of Parliament. Samuel Adams drew up the instructions to the newly elected representatives of Boston to use all efforts against the plan of parliamentary taxation. It was resolved "that the imposition of duties and taxes by the Parliament of Great Britain upon a people not represented in the House of Commons is irreconcilable with their rights." A committee of correspondence was appointed in Massachusetts to communicate with other colonial assemblies, and the idea of union for the common defence began to take firm hold on the public mind. Benjamin Franklin, in the Congress held at Albany in 1754 to insure the aid of the Six Nations in the war then breaking out with France, had proposed a plan of union for the colonies, with a grand council having extensive powers and a president to be appointed by the crown. The plan was not adopted. Adams had written about the same time that "the only way to keep us from setting up for ourselves is to disunite us." Everybody now began to perceive the need of union, which the great intellects of Franklin and Adams had discerned long before.

No influence was so powerful in leading the South to stand side by side with the Northern colonies as that of Patrick Henry, the great orator of Virginia. In the House of Burgesses, in 1765, Mr. Henry introduced his celebrated resolutions against the Stamp Act, as follows:

"Resolved, That the first adventurers and settlers of this his majesty's colony and dominion, brought with them, and transmitted to their posterity, and all other his majesty's subjects, since inhabiting in this, his majesty's said colony, all the privileges, franchises and immunities, that have at any time been held, enjoyed and possessed by the people of Great Britain.

"Resolved, That by two royal charters, granted by King James the First, the colonists, aforesaid, are declared entitled to all the privileges, liberties and immunities of denizens and natural born subjects, to all intents and purposes, as if they had been abiding and born within the realm of England.

"Resolved, That the taxation of the people by themselves, or by persons chosen by themselves to represent them, who can only know what taxes the people are able to bear, and the easiest mode of raising them, and are equally affected by such taxes themselves, is the distinguishing characteristic of British freedom, and without which the ancient constitution cannot subsist.

"Resolved, That his majesty's liege people of this most ancient colony have uninterruptedly enjoyed the right of being thus governed by their own assembly in the article of their taxes and internal police, and that the same hath never been forfeited, or any other way given up, but hath been constantly recognized by the king and people of Great Britain.

"Resolved, therefore, That the General Assembly of this colony have the sole right and power to lay taxes and impositions upon the inhabitants of this colony; and that every attempt to vest such power in any person or persons whatsoever, other than the General Assembly aforesaid, has a manifest tendency to destroy British as well as American freedom."

On the back of the paper containing those resolutions, and found among Henry's papers after his death, was the following endorsement in the handwriting of Mr. Henry himself: "The within resolutions passed the House of Burgesses in May, 1765. They formed the first opposition to the Stamp Act, and the scheme of taxing America by the British Parliament. All the colonies, either through fear or want of opportunity to form an opposition, or from influence of some kind or other, had remained silent. I had been for the first time elected a burgess, a few days before; was young, inexperienced, unacquainted with the forms of the House, and the members that composed it. Finding the men of weight averse to opposition, and the commencement of the tax at hand, and that no person was likely to step forth, I determined to venture, and alone, unadvised and unassisted, on a blank leaf of an old law book wrote the within. Upon offering them to the House, violent debates ensued. Many threats were uttered, and much abuse cast upon me by the party for submission. After a long and warm contest, the resolutions passed by a very small majority, perhaps of one or two only. The alarm spread throughout America with astonishing quickness, and the ministerial party were overwhelmed. The great point of resistance to British taxation was universally established in the colonies. This brought on the war, which finally separated the two countries, and gave independence to ours. Whether this will prove a blessing or a curse will depend upon the use our people make of the blessings which a gracious God hath bestowed on us. If they are wise, they will be great and happy. If they are of a contrary character, they will be miserable--Righteousness alone can exalt them as a nation.

"Reader, whoever thou art, remember this; and in thy sphere practice virtue thyself, and encourage it in others.--P. HENRY."

Every American realized the truth expressed in Mr. Henry's resolutions; but no man beside himself dared to utter it. All wished for independence; and all hitherto trembled at the thought of asserting it. Randolph, Bland, Pendleton and Wythe, with "all the old members whose influence in the House had, till then, been unbroken," opposed the resolutions, and had not Henry's unrivalled eloquence supported them, they would have been strangled in their birth. "The last and strongest resolution was carried by a single vote;" and Peyton Randolph said, immediately after, "I would have given 500 guineas for a single vote!" From this we may easily imagine how spirited was the opposition, and how energetic the eloquence exerted against Henry. It was in the midst of this magnificent debate, while he was descanting on the tyranny of the obnoxious act, that he exclaimed in a voice of thunder, and with the look of a god, "Caesar had his Brutus--Charles the First his Cromwell--and George the Third--('Treason,' cried the Speaker--'treason, treason,' echoed from every part of the House--it was one of those trying moments which is decisive of character--Henry faltered not for an instant; but rising to a loftier attitude, and fixing on the Speaker an eye of the most determined fire, he finished his sentence with the firmest emphasis) _may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it_."[2]

[2] Wirts' "Life of Patrick Henry," pages 64, 65.

On the following day, when Henry was absent, the more timid asserted themselves and the most important of the resolutions was reconsidered and expunged.

A congress held at New York declared against, the Stamp Act, and sent a protest to Parliament. Americans would not buy or use the stamps, and those who undertook agencies for their sale were treated as public enemies. Boxes of stamped paper were burned on arrival in port; the newspapers ignored the act, and legal documents were, by general consent, treated as valid without the stamp. In the following year Parliament, after a prolonged debate, in which William Pitt earnestly supported the American cause, repealed the act. The news of the repeal was received with great rejoicing in America, and the colonists hoped that there would be no more attempts to invade their rights as English subjects.

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King George III., however, was bent upon reducing the colonists to abject submission to his will, and the fact that William Pitt, whom the king detested, had championed the Americans, made the monarch all the more obstinate in his purpose to humiliate them. In 1767 Charles Townshend, chancellor of the exchequer, carried through Parliament a bill putting a duty upon tea, glass, paper and other articles entering American ports. In connection with this measure the scheme of the British crown to reduce the colonies to a vassal condition was fully disclosed. Not only were troops to be supported out of the revenue thus raised, but the salaries of governors, judges and crown attorneys were to be paid from it, and any surplus remaining could be used by the king to pension Americans who had gained the royal grace by their subserviency. Townshend suddenly died after these measures had been adopted, and was succeeded by Lord North, who soon afterward became prime minister. North was not personally in favor of dealing harshly with the colonies, but he yielded to the royal will as the price of remaining in office, and shares in history the infamy of his master's course.

The Americans began to concert measures of resistance. They refused to use the dutiable articles, and made it unprofitable to import them. The Massachusetts legislature was dissolved by order of the king, because it had sent a circular-letter to other colonies inviting common action against the aggressions of Parliament. Other colonial assemblies were dissolved by the king's governors because they answered the letter favorably. The people's representatives continued to attend to the people's interests in informal conventions, and had the more time to give to the overshadowing issue of colonial rights, because royal displeasure had relieved them from the ordinary business of law making. Boston and Richmond worked in harmony in the one great cause, and North and South forgot social and religious differences in common effort for the common weal.

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King George regarded Massachusetts as the hotbed and centre of colonial discontent, and in the autumn of 1768 he sent two regiments of British regulars to that city to assist in enforcing the Townshend acts. The troops and the citizens had frequent disputes, for the colonists were unused to military arrogance, and refused to be ordered about by martinets in uniform. The Boston Massacre, so-called, in March, 1770, when seven soldiers fired into a crowd of townspeople, killing five and wounding several others, helped to inflame the antagonism between the provincials and the military, and Governor Hutchinson, at the demand of Samuel Adams, speaking in behalf of three thousand resolute citizens, removed the troops to an island in the harbor. In April, 1770, Parliament again yielded to the Americans in so far as to take off all the Townshend duties except the duty on tea, which the king insisted upon retaining as a vindication of England's right to impose the duty.

The colonists continued as determined as ever not to submit to British taxation, or to the domineering course of the king's officers, which in some of the provinces had led to harsh and even bloody strife between the people and their oppressors. An armed schooner in the British revenue service called the Gaspee, gave offence to American navigators on Narragansett Bay by requiring that their flag should be lowered in token of respect whenever they passed the king's vessel. The Gaspee ran aground while chasing a Providence sloop. Word of the mishap was carried up to Providence and, on the same night (June 9, 1772) sixty-four armed men went down in boats, attacked and captured the Gaspee, and burned the vessel. Abraham Whipple, afterward a commodore in the Continental Navy, and one of the founders of the State of Ohio, led the expedition. The royal authorities were greatly exasperated on hearing of the daring achievement, and Joseph Wanton, Governor of Rhode Island, afterward deposed from office for his loyalty to King George, issued a proclamation ordering diligent search for the perpetrators of the act. The British government offered a reward of $5000 for the leader, but although the people of Providence well knew who had taken part in the exploit, neither Whipple nor his associates were betrayed. In North Carolina insurgents calling themselves "Regulators" fought a sanguinary battle with Governor Tryon's troops, and were defeated, and six of them hanged for treason. In South Carolina the people also divided on the issue between England and the colonists, but for the time stopped short of violence.

The famous "Boston Tea Party" occurred in December, 1773. This was not a riotous, or, from the colonial standpoint, a lawless act, for the colonists were already administering their own affairs to a certain extent independently of royal authority, with the view to the preservation and defence of their liberties. The English East India Company had been anxious to regain the American trade and offered to pay an export duty more than equivalent to the import duty imposed in America, if the government would permit tea to be delivered at colonial ports free of duty. To this the British government would not consent, on the ground that it would be a surrender of the principle which the import duty represented. The government permitted the East India Company, however, to export tea to America free from export duty, thus allowing the Americans to buy tea as cheaply as if no import duty had been levied. The British authorities assumed that Americans would be satisfied to sell the principle for which they were contending for threepence on a pound of tea. They learned the American character better when two ships laden with tea arrived in Boston. The citizens gathered in the old South Meeting-house, and in the evening about sixty men, disguised as Indians, boarded the ships and cast the tea into the harbor. Upon news of this event reaching England, King George and his ministers decided to make an example of Boston. A bill was introduced by Lord North and passed almost unanimously closing the port of Boston and making Salem the seat of government. Another act annulled the charter of Massachusetts, and a military governor, General Thomas Gage, was appointed, with absolute authority over the province.

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With the enactment of the Boston Port Bill, King George and his Parliament crossed the Rubicon. America was aflame. The other colonies joined in expressing their sympathy with Massachusetts, and their resolve to stand by her people and share their fate. A Continental Congress convened in Carpenter's Hall, Philadelphia, on the fourth of September, 1774. The most eminent men in the colonies were now brought together for the first time to decide upon action which would affect the liberties of three millions of people. Patrick Henry was the first to speak, and he delivered an address worthy of his fame and worthy of the occasion. Colonel, afterward General Washington, then made the impression which earned for him the command of the American armies. The Congress drew up a Declaration of Rights, and sent it to the king. The people of Massachusetts formed a Provincial Congress with John Hancock for President, and began organizing provincial troops, and collecting military stores. Virginia continued to keep pace with Massachusetts. At a convention of delegates from the several counties and corporations of Virginia, held in Richmond, March, 1775, Patrick Henry stood resolutely forth for armed resistance. "Three millions of people," he said, "armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations; and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat, but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged. Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable--and let it come!! I repeat it, sir, let it come!!!

"It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry peace, peace--but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north, will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God!--I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!"