Meanwhile, George III had achieved what he felt to be a signal triumph. His ten years' struggle to divide and control the Whig aristocracy had been crowned with success. The Duke of Grafton threw up his office, and on the last day of January, 1770, Lord North, leader of the new Tory party of "King's friends," succeeded him as first lord of the treasury. Through this facile servant, the king was at last able to try the hazardous experiment of governing as well as reigning.
At once, the new ministry had to deal with the American problem. The Townshend Acts were a decided failure: they had brought the colonies close to the verge of rebellion without creating a revenue. Near the close of the session in 1769, Pownall, in the House of Commons, had shown "that the total produce of the new taxes for the first year had been less than £16,000; that the expenses of the new custom-house arrangements had reduced the net proceeds of the crown revenue in the colonies to only £295; while the extraordinary military expenses in America" for the same period amounted to £170,000. His motion for repeal was evaded by referring the subject to the next session. In May, 1770, soon after the prorogation, Hillsborough sent a letter to the colonial governors, announcing the intention to repeal the Townshend act so far as it imposed duties on British goods, such duties "having been laid contrary to the true principles of commerce"; and adding that the administration had never intended to "lay any further taxes upon America for the purpose of raising a revenue."
Accordingly, on March 5 (the day of the "Boston massacre"), Lord North, the new Prime Minister, moved a repeal of the Townshend Acts, except the part imposing a duty on tea. In support of his motion he said the act had given birth to "dangerous combinations beyond the Atlantic," and created "much dissatisfaction" among British merchants; and he declared that "it must astonish every reasonable man to think how so preposterous a law," laying a tax on many articles of British manufacture, "could originally obtain existence from a British legislature." The retention of the duty on tea he justified on the ground that, through the drawback allowed, the cost of tea in the provinces was actually lowered, and because it was needful to assert the supremacy of Parliament. "The properest time to exert our right of taxation is when the right is refused. The properest time for making resistance is when we are attacked." An amendment by Pownall to include the tax on tea in the repeal was defeated by a large majority. Hence, in April, the law imposing a duty on glass, paper, and painters' colors was formally rescinded; but, in the spirit of the declaratory act of 1766, to support the right of parliamentary taxation, the duty on tea was retained. In connection with this measure, the government pledged itself to raise no further revenue in America; and the detested quartering act — limited by its terms to three years — was allowed quietly to expire.
The retention of the tax on tea was due largely to the personal influence of the king, and that he was able to have his way in so useless and so perilous a measure reveals the utter ineptitude of British statesmanship in this critical period. During the next three years, colonial affairs were directed mainly by royal orders. In consequence of the partial repeal of the Townshend Acts, commerce between England and America began to improve. The boycott of British goods had been severely felt in England: from £2,378,000 in 1768, exports to America had fallen to £1,634,000 in 1769. The non-importation agreements were now discontinued, except that everywhere associations were formed whose members pledged themselves not to drink tea upon which the tax had been paid. For the year 1770, the amount of imports from Great Britain rose to £1,925,571, while the next year it rose to over £4,200,000.
But the discontent of the colonies was not allowed to slumber. In various ways, the controversy was kept up, and feeling became more and more bitter. During the autumn of 1769, the New York assembly, then dominated by the more moderate party, complied with the billeting act and was allowed to resume its functions. For censuring this conduct of the assembly and calling a public meeting to consider it, Alexander McDougall, afterwards a major-general in the revolutionary army, was committed to prison by the house. In sympathy with the latter, the soldiers quartered in the city cut down a liberty pole erected by the patriotic party. The townsmen retaliated, and thus, frequent brawls between them and the troops took place.
The royal orders now began to work their evil influence. Before Bernard's departure from the province, the general court had been prorogued until January 10, 1770, to meet as usual in Boston. But in consequence of instructions from the secretary of state, announcing the king's pleasure, Hutchinson called the meeting in Cambridge for March 15.
The house protested "against any such reason for proroguing this court, as being an infraction of our essential rights, as men and citizens, as well as those derived to us by the British constitution, and the charter of this colony"; and it requested a copy of the royal instructions.
Hutchinson declined the request, "because the king has been pleased to order that no letters nor instructions to his governor, shall be communicated, without his majesty's special leave"; nor would he yield to the repeated request of the house, that the general court should be called in the usual place, although as a matter of fact the king had given him discretion so to do. By a vote of 96 out of 102, the assembly declared the removal to Cambridge "a very great grievance," committed without the "least probability of serving any one good purpose," and declined to do business while "thus constrained to hold their sessions out of the town of Boston." Becoming bolder, it affirmed that "the people and their representatives have a right to withstand the abusive exercise of a legal and constitutional prerogative of the crown"; and incidentally, it condemned the order to rescind "the excellent resolution of a former house" as an "impudent mandate."
The wrangle growing out of this useless but dangerous act of interference took up two whole sessions of the assembly, and when at length the court, under protest, consented to proceed to business, after a day of solemn humiliation and prayer, another controversy was at hand. By royal order, Hutchinson had reluctantly removed from the castle the garrison in the pay of the province and placed the fort in charge of the regular troops. The house bitterly complained of this action, saying that "false representations" must have been made to the king, "to induce him to pass an order, which implies a total want of confidence, and carries in it the evident marks of his royal displeasure"; and alleging that the authority vested in the governor by the charter must thus be "superseded by instruction." For "if the custody and government of that fortress" are now "lodged with the military power, independent of the supreme civil magistrate ..., it is so essential an alteration of the constitution, as must justly alarm a free people." In a secret session of the council, Hutchinson disclosed his instructions. Feeling that he was executing an unwise and probably illegal order, he went to the castle, discharged the garrison without warning, and then retired to his country-house at Milton. The same royal order made the harbor at Boston the rendezvous of the king's ships in American waters.
In April 1771, Hutchinson announced his appointment as governor, and in the following July, under another royal order, he gave rise to a new controversy by vetoing a bill providing for the annual income tax, which, according to custom, included the salaries of the crown officers. For this, the house rebuked him, saying that withholding his assent from the bill, "merely by force of instruction, is effectually vacating the charter, and giving instructions the force of laws, within this province." The popular resentment was still further provoked by Hutchinson's announcement on June 13, 1772, that henceforth his salary would be paid by the crown. The house declared this to be an "infraction upon the charter in a material point," whereby a most important trust was wrested out of its hands; and it refused to provide for the repair of the province house while occupied by a governor not drawing his whole support from the general assembly. Following close upon this, in August, came the news that, in the same way, the judges were to be made dependent on the royal favor. The effect of this measure in advancing party organization will presently be considered.
While these events were taking place in Massachusetts, the other provinces were harassed by similar orders from the ministry, issued "under the king's sign manual, with the privy seal annexed." Each province received a set of instructions according to local circumstances, so that a general issue upon them could not be made. They dealt with a variety of subjects. Sometimes the assemblies were arbitrarily dismissed. In Georgia, the governor vetoed the choice of Dr. Jones as speaker because he was "a very strong Liberty Boy." The House pronounced the veto a breach of privilege and a violation of the liberties of the people. Thereupon, Hillsborough ordered the governor to veto the choice of the next speaker and to dissolve the assembly in case the right to do so was questioned. This command was obeyed to the letter.
South Carolina in 1769 — constrained by the demands of the settlers of the "up country," who were "clamorous for courts upon any terms" — had reluctantly provided perpetual salaries for the judges, although these would be appointed during the king's pleasure. Thereafter, Rawlins Lowndes and other judges from the colony were dismissed, and in 1772 persons from Great Britain were sent out to take their place. Since March, 1771, there had been no legislation, because the assembly resented the action of the governor, who, under a royal instruction, refused his assent to bills appropriating money for the "Supporters of the Bill of Rights," an English "association to raise means to pay the debts of John Wilkes and to provide for his support and his expenses while imprisoned." Moreover, in 1772, the governor, Lord Charles Montagu, stirred up another quarrel with the assembly by convening it at Beaufort, seventy-five miles from Charleston, the usual place of sitting.
The indignation of the people of Virginia was aroused by a much more serious grievance. In 1770, the king, in the interest of British merchants, issued an instruction commanding the governor "upon pain of the highest displeasure, to assent to no law by which the importation of slaves should be in any respect prohibited or obstructed." In the address against this order, the burgesses in 1772 declared that "the importation of slaves into the colonies from the coast of Africa hath long been considered as a trade of great inhumanity, and under its present encouragement, we have too much reason to fear will endanger the very existence of your Majesty's American dominions. We are sensible that some of your Majesty's subjects in Great Britain may reap emoluments from this sort of traffic; but when we consider that it greatly retards the settlement of the colonies with more useful inhabitants, and may in time have the most destructive influence, we presume to hope that the interest of a few will be disregarded, when placed in competition with the security and happiness of such numbers of your Majesty's dutiful and loyal subjects. ... Deeply impressed with these sentiments, we most humbly beseech your Majesty to remove all those restraints on your ... governors of this colony, which inhibit their assenting to such laws as might check so very pernicious a commerce." Yet at the very time when George III was thus fostering the slave-trade in America, Chief-Justice Mansfield rendered the famous decision which, in effect, declares a slave free the instant he sets foot on the soil of England.
An unwise assertion of prerogative in Maryland was producing similar effects. By proclamation in 1770, the governor revived a law regulating fees of officers "which had expired by limitation, in this way asserting the right to levy taxes." The controversy thus aroused, dividing the colony into two parties, was kept up until the Revolution.
In Rhode Island, the execution of the revenue laws led to a serious act of violence. Lieutenant Dudingston, commander of the Gaspee, a schooner carrying eight guns, had given offense by his arbitrary and unlawful methods. "He stopped all vessels, including small market boats, without showing his authority for so doing; and even sent the property he had illegally seized to Boston for trial, contrary to an act of Parliament, which required such trials to be held in the colonies where the seizures were made." Moreover, he is said to have searched for smuggled goods with needless violence; and in general he made himself "extremely obnoxious to the colony, in which smuggling was one of the most flourishing and most popular trades."
On complaint of inhabitants of Providence, Chief-Justice Hopkins held "that no commander of any vessel has a right to use any authority in the body of the colony, without previously applying to the Governor, and showing his warrant for so doing; and also being sworn to a due exercise of his office." Dudingston appealed to the admiral, who fully sustained his course. June 9, 1772, lured into shallow water by a boat that it was chasing, the Gaspee ran aground. In the evening, the ship was boarded by an armed party from Providence. Dudingston was shot and fell on deck seriously wounded, the crew were bound and placed on shore, and the ship burned to the water's edge. The manner in which this outrage was dealt with by the ministry soon gave the colonists new cause for complaint.
The rule of the colonies by royal orders was thus generally resented as unconstitutional. "The ministry," it was said, "have substituted discretion for law." For two years, this policy had caused irritation and strife. It was now about to prepare the way for the united resistance of America to Great Britain by affording the immediate motive for a revolutionary party organization.
In Massachusetts, Samuel Adams had already become the centre of political agitation. He possessed precisely the qualities that belong to a consummate revolutionary leader. The very narrowness of view which often prevented him from seeing the merits of his adversaries only added to this power. He had unbounded faith in democratic self-government. To us, he is perhaps best known as the "man of the town-meeting." He reverenced the people and was almost fanatical in his zeal for constitutional liberty. He had an indomitable will, great tenacity of purpose, and unflinching courage. His integrity cannot justly be impeached. In his religious prejudices and beliefs, he was a puritan of the puritans. He was poor in worldly goods, simple in manner and dress, and able to enter sympathetically into the thoughts and feelings of plain men. Much of his power lay in his ability to persuade and lead the fishermen, rope-makers, and ship-masters of Boston. Moreover, he possessed literary skills of a high order. His almost innumerable papers during the revolutionary period are compact, sometimes even elegant, in form, and many of them masterly in their grasp of the great problems with which they deal. He was decidedly the "penman of the Revolution."
In addition to his other gifts, Samuel Adams had a rare talent for practical politics. He displayed a capacity for organization, sometimes lapsing into intrigue, a foresight sometimes sinking into cunning, which render him the prototype of a long line of American politicians. It is said that "he had a hereditary antipathy to the British government, for his father seems to have been rained by the restrictions the English parliament imposed on the circulation of paper money, and a bank in which his father was largely concerned had been dissolved by act of parliament." It is, indeed, likely that this incident did not tend to lessen his dislike of the British colonial policy. But to suppose that his hatred of monarchy and the English church was essentially due to a feeling of personal wrong or to personal spite would show little understanding of Samuel Adams or of the real causes of the American Revolution.
From the first menace of the stamp tax, Adams taught the necessity of union. For some time, he held under consideration a scheme for party organization through committees of correspondence. The instructions of the ministry requiring the judges to receive their salaries from the crown gave him the opportunity to carry out his project. On October 5, 1772, in a Boston journal, he wrote, "Is Life, Property, and everything dear and sacred to be submitted to the Decisions of PENSIONED judges? ... Let Associations and Combinations be everywhere set up to consult and recover our just Rights." He appealed to the town meeting, but the other leaders were lukewarm, and his first efforts were not successful. November 2, 1772 — taking advantage of the anger caused by Hutchinson's arrogant answer to the resolution of inquiry — he moved "that a Committee of Correspondence be appointed to consist of twenty-one Persons — to state the Rights of the Colonists and of this Province in particular, as Men, as Christians, and as Subjects; to communicate and publish the same to the several Towns ... and to the World as the sense of this Town, with the Infringements and Violations thereof that have been, or from time to time may be made."
Though at first opposed by some of Adams's associates, this motion was at last unanimously adopted. November 20, the committee of correspondence submitted to a town-meeting in Faneuil Hall its report, which comprised a "State of the Rights of the Colonists," drafted by Samuel Adams; a "List of the Infringements and Violations of Those Rights," prepared by Joseph Warren; and a "Letter of Correspondence" with the other towns of the province, written by Benjamin Church. Together, these papers constituted the most radical and comprehensive statement of the case of the colonists that had yet appeared. The towns began at once to appoint similar committees, and during the early months of 1773, their replies were sent in. The substructure of a future national organization was thus laid. "The whole frame of it," says Hutchinson, "was calculated to strike the colonists with a sense of their just claim to independence, and to stimulate them to assert it." According to Daniel Leonard, "this is the foulest, subtlest, and most venomous serpent ever issued from the egg of sedition. I saw the small seed when it was planted; it was a grain of mustard. I have watched the plant until it has become a great tree."
Nevertheless, there seemed to be a lull in the storm. Not a single committee of correspondence was at that time chosen outside of Massachusetts. Other colonies, however, were drawn into line by the arrival of a new royal order from Lord Dartmouth, successor to Hillsborough in the colonial office, creating a special commission to investigate the affair of the Gaspee. The commission was authorized to arrest the offenders, if discovered, and send them to England for trial. No legal evidence could be secured, and so in June the commission finally adjourned without accomplishing its purpose.
Already, the proposal to transport Americans to England for trial had borne fruit. In Virginia, on March 12, 1773, the House of Burgesses appointed a standing committee for intercolonial correspondence. Among its eleven members were Richard Bland, Dabney Carr, Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, and Thomas Jefferson. In a set of resolutions the committee was directed to inform itself "particularly of the principles and authority on which was constituted a court of inquiry, said to have been lately held in Rhode Island, with powers to transport persons accused of offences committed in America to places beyond the seas to be tried"; and the speaker was instructed to send a copy of the resolutions to each of the other assemblies on the continent, with a request to appoint a similar committee of correspondence. By July 8, five colonies — Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and South Carolina — had complied with the request.
Thus, in these two sets of committees, local and provincial, the foundation of American independence was laid. "The Union of the Colonies, which is now taking place," it was said in the press, "is big with the most important advantages to this continent. From this Union will result our Security from all foreign enemies. ... The United Americans may bid Defiance to all their open as well as secret foes; therefore, let it be the Study of all to make the Union of the Colonies firm and perpetual, as it will be the great Basis for Liberty and every public Blessing in America."