Volume I Part 37 (1/2)
”7. That whosoever shall, directly or indirectly, countenance this attempt, or in anywise aid or abet in unloading, receiving, or vending the tea sent or to be sent out by the East India Company, while it remains subject to the payment of a duty here, is an enemy to his country.
”8. That a Committee be immediately chosen to wait on those gentlemen who it is reported are appointed by the East India Company to receive and sell said tea, and request them, from a regard to their own character, and the peace and good order of the city and province, immediately to resign their appointments.” (Ramsay's Colonial History, Vol. I., pp. 372, 373.)]
[Footnote 319: Ramsay's Colonial History, Vol. 1., Chap. iii., pp.
373-375.]
[Footnote 320: Holmes' Annals, etc., Vol. II., pp. 181, 182.]
[Footnote 321: Barry's History of Ma.s.sachusetts, Second Period, Chap.
xiv., pp. 470-473.
The historian adds: ”The Governor was in a forlorn state, and was unable to keep up even a show of authority. Every one was against him. The Houses were against him. 'The superior judges were intimidated from acting,' and 'there was not a justice of the peace, sheriff, constable, or peace-officer in the province who would venture to take cognizance of any breach of law against the general bent of the people.'”--_Ib._, 473, 474.]
[Footnote 322: Governor Hutchinson, in a note, referring to the mercantile English letters which contained the suggestion not to allow the landing of the tea of the East India Company, says:
”These letters were dated in England the beginning of August, and were received in America the latter end of September and the beginning of October.”
Mr. Bancroft states as follows the causes and circ.u.mstances of this disastrous tea agreement between the British Ministry and East India Company:
”The continued refusal of North America to receive tea from England had brought distress upon the East India Company, which had on hand, wanting a market, great quant.i.ties imported in the faith that that agreement (in the colonies, not to purchase tea imported from England) could not hold.
They were able to pay neither their dividends nor their debts; their stock depreciated nearly one-half; and the Government must lose their annual payment of four hundred thousand pounds.
”The bankruptcies, brought on partly by this means, gave such a shock to credit as had not been experienced since the South Sea year, and the great manufacturers were sufferers. The directors came to Parliament with an ample confession of their humbled state, together with entreaties for a.s.sistance and relief, and particularly praying that leave might be given to export tea free of all duties to America and to foreign ports. Had such leave been granted in respect of America, it would have been an excellent commercial regulation, as well as have restored a good understanding to every part of the empire. Instead of this, Lord North proposed to give to the Company itself the right of exporting its teas. The existing law granted on their exportation to America a drawback of three-fifths only of the duties paid on importation. Lord North now offered to the East India Company a drawback of the whole. Trecothick, in the committee, also advised to take off the import duty in America of threepence the pound, as it produced no income to the revenue; but the Ministry would not listen to the thought of relieving America from taxation. 'Then,' added Trecothick in behalf of the East India Company, 'as much or more may be brought into revenue by not allowing a full exemption from the duties paid here.' But Lord North refused to discuss the right of Parliament to tax America, insisting that no difficulty could arise; that under the new regulation America would be able to buy tea from the Company at a lower price than from any other European nation, and that men will always go to the cheapest market.
”The Ministry was still in its halcyon days; no opposition was made even by the Whigs; and the measure, which was the King's own, and was designed to put America to the test, took effect as law from the 10th day of May, 1773. It was immediately followed by a most carefully prepared answer from the King to pet.i.tions from Ma.s.sachusetts, announcing that he 'considered his authority to make laws in Parliament of sufficient force and validity to bind his subjects in America, in all cases whatsoever, as essential to the dignity of the Crown, and a right appertaining to the State, which it was his duty to preserve entire and inviolate;' that he therefore 'could not but be greatly displeased with the pet.i.tions and remonstrance in which that right was drawn into question,' but that he 'imputed the unwarrantable doctrines held forth in the said pet.i.tions and remonstrance to the artifices of a few.' All this while Lord Dartmouth (the new Secretary of State for the Colonies, successor to Lord Hillsborough) 'had a true desire to see lenient measures adopted towards the colonies,' not being in the least aware that he was drifting with the Cabinet towards the very system of coercion against which he gave the most public and the most explicit pledges.” (History of the United States, Vol. VI., pp. 458-460.)]
[Footnote 323: See these resolutions, in a note on pp. 374, 375.]
[Footnote 324: ”In South Carolina, some of the tea was thrown into the river as at Boston.” (English Annual Register for 1774, Vol. XVII., p.
50.)]
CHAPTER XVIII.
EVENTS OF 1774--ALL CLa.s.sES IN THE COLONIES DISCONTENTED--ALL CLa.s.sES AND ALL THE PROVINCES REJECT THE EAST INDIA COMPANY'S TEA.
The year 1774 commenced, among other legacies of 1773, with that of the discontent of all the colonies,[325] their unanimous rejection of the East India tea, stamped with the threepenny duty of parliamentary tax, as the symbol of the absolutism of King and Parliament over the colonies. The manner of its rejection, by being thrown into the sea at Boston, was universally denounced by all parties in England. The accounts of all the proceedings in America against the admission of the East India tea to the colonial ports, were coloured by the mediums through which they were transmitted--the royal governors and their executive officers, who expected large advantages from being a.s.signed and paid their salaries by the Crown, independent of the local Legislatures; and the consignees of the East India Company, who antic.i.p.ated large profits from their monopoly of its sale. Opposition to the tea duty was represented as ”rebellion”--the a.s.sertors of colonial freedom from imperial taxation without representation were designated ”rebels” and ”traitors,” notwithstanding their professed loyalty to the Throne and to the unity of the empire, and that their utmost wishes were limited to be replaced in the position they occupied after the peace of Paris, in 1763, and after their unanimous and admitted loyalty, and even heroism, in defence and support of British supremacy in America.
”Intelligence,” says Dr. Holmes, ”of the destruction of the tea at Boston was communicated on the 7th of March (1774), in a message from the Throne, to both Houses of Parliament. In this communication the conduct of the colonists was represented as not merely obstructing the commerce of Great Britain, but as subversive of the British Const.i.tution. Although the papers accompanying the Royal message rendered it evident that the opposition to the sale of the tea was common to all the colonies; yet the Parliament, enraged at the violence of Boston, selected that town as the object of its legislative vengeance. Without giving the opportunity of a hearing, a Bill was pa.s.sed by which the port of Boston was legally precluded from the privilege of landing and discharging, or of lading or s.h.i.+pping goods, wares, and merchandise; and every vessel within the points Aldeston and Nahant was required to depart within six hours, unless laden with food or fuel.
”This Act, which shut up the harbour of Boston, was speedily followed by another, ent.i.tled 'An Act for Better Regulating the Government of Ma.s.sachusetts,' which provided that the Council, heretofore elected by the General a.s.sembly, was to be appointed by the Crown; the Royal Governor was invested with the power of appointing and removing all Judges of the Courts of Common Pleas, Commissioners of Oyer and Terminer, the Attorney-General, Provost-Marshal, Justices, Sheriffs, etc.; town meetings, which were sanctioned by the Charter, were, with few exceptions, expressly forbidden, without leave previously obtained of the Governor or Lieutenant-Governor, expressing the special business of said meeting, and with a further restriction that no matters should be treated of at these meetings except the electing of public officers and the business expressed in the Governor's permission; jurymen, who had been elected before by the freeholders and inhabitants of the several towns, were to be all summoned and returned by the sheriffs of the respective counties; the whole executive government was taken out of the hands of the people, and the nomination of all important officers invested in the King or his Governor.
”In the apprehension that in the execution of these Acts riots would take place, and that trials or murders committed in suppressing them would be partially decided by the colonists, it was provided by another Act, that if any persons were indicted for murder, or any capital offence, _committed in aiding the magistracy_, the Governor might send the person so indicted to another county, or to Great Britain, to be tried.
”These three Acts were pa.s.sed in such quick succession as to produce the most inflammatory effects in America, where they were considered as forming a complete system of tyranny. 'By the first,' said the colonists, 'the property of unoffending thousands is arbitrarily taken away for the act of a few individuals; by the second, our chartered liberties are annihilated; and by the third, our lives may be destroyed with impunity.'”[326]
The pa.s.sing of these three Bills through Parliament was attended in each case with protracted and animated debates.
The first debate or discussion of American affairs took place on the 7th of March, in proposing an address of thanks to the King for the message and the communication of the American papers, with an a.s.surance that the House would not fail to exert every means in their power of effectually providing for objects so important to the general welfare as maintaining the due execution of the laws, and for securing the just dependence of the colonies upon the Crown and Parliament of Great Britain.