Part 8 (1/2)
”This is a copy,” he continued, ”of the protest. It represents that the people were already much cramped in their liberties and would be fools to consent to have their freedom further abridged. They were not bound to obey those laws, because they had no voice in making them.
They stood on their natural rights. It would take many hours to tell you, Mr. Walden, the full story of oppression on the part of Parliament towards the Colonies, or to picture the greed of the merchants and manufacturers of England, who could not then, and who cannot now, bear to think of a spinning-wheel whirling or a shuttle flying anywhere outside of England, or of anybody selling anything unless for the benefit of the men who keep shop in the vicinity of Threadneedle Street or Amen Corner.[21] The course of England in selfishness and greed is like the prayer of the man who said,--
”'O Lord, bless my wife and me, Son John and his she, We four, No more.'”
[Footnote 21: Threadneedle Street and Amen Corner--noted localities in London.]
Robert, Berinthia, and Mrs. Adams laughed heartily. Mr. Adams finished his mush and milk, and while Mrs. Adams was serving the pandowdy he went on:--
”Memory goes back to my boyhood. When I was ten years old or thereabouts, there were no less than sixteen hat makers and possibly more in this one town. I used to pa.s.s several of the shops on my way to school. Beavers were plenty on all the streams in New Hamps.h.i.+re and western Ma.s.sachusetts, and the hatters were doing a thriving business, sending their hats to the West Indies and Holland. One of the merchants sent some to England. The makers of felt hats over there could not tolerate such a transaction. There was a buzzing around the Lords of Trade; a complaint that the felters were being impoverished by the hatters of America. Parliament thereupon pa.s.sed a law to suppress the manufacture of hats. Here is the law.”
Mr. Adams read from the paper:--
”No hats or felts, dyed or undyed, finished or unfinished, shall be put on board any vessel in any place within any British plantations, nor be laden upon any horse or other carriage to the intent to be exported from thence to any other plantation, or to any other place, upon forfeiture thereof, and the offender shall likewise pay five hundred pounds for every such offense. Every person knowing thereof, and willingly aiding therein, shall forfeit forty pounds.”
”That is diabolical,” said Robert, his blood beginning to boil.
Mr. Adams saw the flush upon his cheek and smiled.
”I see that it stirs you up, as it does every lover of liberty. But I have not given you the full text of the iniquitous act: the law forbade any one from making a hat who had not served as an apprentice seven years, nor could a man employ more than two apprentices. Under that law no hatter up in Portsmouth could paddle across the Piscataqua and sell a hat to his neighbor in Kittery because the hat was made in New Hamps.h.i.+re. The hatter who had a shop in Providence could not carry a hat to his neighbor just over the line in Swansey, one town being in Rhode Island and the other in Ma.s.sachusetts. The law, you see, was designed to crush out the manufacture of hats. The law applied to almost everything.”
”I had no idea that such laws had been pa.s.sed; they are abominable!”
Robert replied with a vigor that brought a smile to Mr. Adams's face, who took a bit of cheese and smacked his lips.
”Every time I taste it I think of you and your father, mother, and sister who made it,” he said.
”I hope to see them sometime,” said Mrs. Adams.
”I am not quite through with the iniquity,” continued Mr. Adams.
”About forty years ago--it was in 1737, I think--Parliament pa.s.sed what is called the Sugar Act, which imposed a duty on sugar and mola.s.ses, if imported from any of the West India Islands other than those owned by Great Britain. Cuba, as you know, is a dependency of Spain and St. Domingo of France. The sugar plantations of Jamaica and Guinea are owned by Englishmen, and the law was pa.s.sed to compel the Colonies to trade solely with the Jamaica planters. The Great and General Court protested that the act was a violation of the rights of the Colonies, but no notice was taken of the protest--it was thrown into the basket for waste paper. Since the time of Charles II. not less than twenty-nine acts have been pa.s.sed, which, in one way or another, restrict trade and invade the rights of the Colonies. I suppose, Mr. Walden, you leach the ashes, which you sc.r.a.pe up from your fireplace?”
”Oh yes,” Robert replied; ”not only what we take from the hearth in the kitchen, but when we have a burning of a ten-acre lot, as we had a few weeks ago, we scoop up several cart-loads of ashes which we leach, and boil the lye to potash.”[22]
[Footnote 22: The leaching of ashes and manufacture of potash was a large industry during the Colonial period. In some sections of the country the article was known as ”black salts.” There was one or more potashery in every town.]
”And what do you do with the potash?”
”We shall probably bring it to Boston and sell it to Mr. Hanc.o.c.k or some other merchant.”
”Oh no, you can't do that legally, because you live in New Hamps.h.i.+re, and the law prohibits trade of that sort between the Colonies. You can take the potash to Portsmouth, and if there is an English vessel in the Piscataqua you can send it to England and have it s.h.i.+pped back to Boston; but it must be in an English s.h.i.+p, not in one owned by my good friend John Langdon, merchant in Portsmouth, who is ready to stand resolutely against all oppression; or you may pay the Custom House officer what it will cost to transport it to England and back to Boston, and he will give you permission to s.h.i.+p it direct to Boston.
That is the law; but it has been inoperative for several reasons--one, because it could not be enforced, and another, because Great Britain has been compelled to rely upon the Colonies to aid in driving the French from Canada. That has been accomplished, and now King George, who is not remarkably intelligent, but pig-headed, and his short-sighted ministers are determined to carry out measures, not only to obtain revenue from the Colonies, but to repress manufactures here for the benefit of the manufactures of England. Thanks to our spinning-school, a stimulus has been given to our home manufactures which will enable us to spin and weave a goodly amount of plain cloth.
Perhaps, Mr. Walden, you may have noticed the spinning-school building in Long Acre,[23] near the Common--a large brick building with the figure of a woman holding a distaff.”
[Footnote 23: Long Acre extended from School Street to the Common, and was sometimes called Common Street, now a section of Tremont Street.]
”Yes, I saw it yesterday, and wondered what it might mean.”
”Well, quite a number of years ago, the Great and General Court pa.s.sed a law for the encouragement of spinning, levying a tax on carriages and other luxuries for the establishment of the school. Its opening was celebrated on the Common. About one hundred women and girls came with their spinning-wheels and set them to humming beneath the trees.
The court gave prizes for the best work. At present we buy our broadcloths and velvets in England, but the time will come when we shall make them this side of the Atlantic.”